Michael Longley followed his wife Edna Longley's lecture on Monday, Nov. 7 with his own poetry reading on Tuesday, Nov. 8. Hailing from Ireland, Longley charmed a large audience at Hopkins with his light-hearted humor and short but strong poetry as part two of The Writing Seminars's 2011 Turnbull Lectures. His reading only lasted 50 minutes, but like his poems, was as brief as it was moving.
Hopkins's Elliot Coleman Professor of Poetry Dave Smith introduced his friend fondly and with great praise. "Longley's name is inseparable from Irish history," Smith said, citing the poet's part in promoting nonviolence through his art form.
Longley, whom Smith described as "[an] advocate of poetry and life," is an Ireland native and icon. Born in Belfast in 1939, he went on to attend Trinity College and was appointed Professor of Poetry for Ireland in 2007.
Longley took to the podium in a purple shirt and red suspenders (he jokingly referred to them as his "bra straps" as they kept sliding off his shoulders). He began the reading with a series of love poems that reflected how love has changed for him from his 20's to his 70's. The first of the four poems was "Swans Mating," written when he was a young man. After "The Linen Industry" and "The Pattern," he ended with "Cloudberries," written just a few years ago. "[Love] just gets better and better," Longley said affectionately, describing love poetry as the center of the "wheel" that is poetry, with all other genres of poetry branching out like spokes.
The poet read deliberately in his Irish accent, giving weight to each of his words. He grouped his poems into series for the reading, introducing each set with a brief background story. The explained unity was a refreshing and very personal addition to the poems, many of which are anthologized without their counterparts.
The second "quartet of poems," as he called them, included "The Butchers" and "Ceasefire" and reflected the influence of The Odyssey on his poetry. More than once during his reading, Longley explained how the classics have inspired his writing. The third suite of poems was an ode to his six grandchildren and the time they spent at Carrigskeewaun. These poems were quiet and delicately done. The next grouping was a series of elegies, beginning with "Detour," where Longley recounts his own funeral procession.
A particular standout was "The Lifeboat," where Longley imagines his death at a pub as owner Charlie Gaffney makes him his last "pluperfect pint."
"He doesn't notice that I am dead until closing time / And he sweeps around my feet." It isn't Longley who has died though, but Gaffney. "The pub might as well be empty forever now," he grieves. There is a perfected balance of sentimentality in his poems, though, works that often present a daring juxtaposition of life and death.
The final grouping of poems was dedicated to his father, who served in World War I and died when Longley was still young.
Here, Longley's precise verse shone through in his decasyllabic "Wounds," and finale "Harmonica," which he referred to as one of his favorites. He described his struggle to write "Harmonica" over the years — it was clear that when writing about his father, Longley strives to find the right amount of admiration, tenderness and spirit without overdoing it.
He strikes it just right with lines like "His breath contains the world." The brief seven-line poem demonstrates what Longley does best: creating a world of emotion in just a few words.
