Paul Painting Paul: Self-Portraiture and Subjectivity in Durcan’s Poetry

Authors

  • Kathleen McCracken

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v14i0.3614

Abstract

In a significant number of Paul Durcan’s poems, a ‘character’ named Paul Durcan makes an appearance. Part autobiographical trace, part fictional
construct, what does this enigmatic persona have to say about authorship,
subjectivity and the potential for self-portraiture via poetic form? This article
examines the multiple implications of Durcan’s apparent self-inscription in light of Barthes’s notion of the death of the author, Foucault’s author function, and Durcan’s own perception of the poetry collection as a verbal picture gallery.

Author Biography

  • Kathleen McCracken

    Kathleen McCracken is the author of seven collections of poetry including Blue Light, Bay and College (Penumbra Press, 1991), which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 1992, A Geography of Souls (Thistledown Press, 2002), Moonclaves (Exile Editions, 2007) and Tattoo Land (Exile Editions, 2009). She has been the recipient of the University of Toronto Review’s Editor’s Choice Award for Poetry (1985) and the Anne Szumigalski Editor’s Prize (2002), and has held several Ontario Arts Council Writers’ Grants. She was runner-up in the National Poetry Contest (1998) and shortlisted for the Canadian Poetry Chapbook Competition (1999). Her poems have been published in The Malahat Review, Poetry Canada Review, Exile Quarterly, Poetry Ireland, New Orleans Review and Grain, and she has given readings in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
    Kathleen is currently Lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. She has published scholarly articles on the poetry of Derek Mahon, Paul Muldoon and Ciaran Carson, as well as on Irish cinema, the documentary films of John T Davis, and First Nations Canadian writing. A critical monograph entitled Radical Vision: Reading the Poetry of Paul Durcan is forthcoming from Bloodaxe Books.

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Published

2012-11-17

Issue

Vol. 14 (2012): ABEI Journal 14

Section

Poetry

How to Cite

McCracken, K. (2012). Paul Painting Paul: Self-Portraiture and Subjectivity in Durcan’s Poetry. ABEI Journal, 14, 105-112. https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v14i0.3614