Greetings to Brazil in Our Friends! People, Place and Tradition in Paul Durcan’s Poetry

Аннотация

It would probably be fair to say that Paul Duran is best known for his satirical poetry of social protest and for his performance of it. This is reflected in the fact that his work has been all but ignored in terms of academic criticism with only one full collection of relevant essays published. It is telling that, whilst not a few Irish poets have hailed their respect for Durcan, Edna Longley has been in the academic minority in noting his importance. Though Irish Studies in the South has generally overlooked Durcan's contribution, Longley summarises her introduction to The Selected Paul Durcan: "Durcan's poetry seems in touch with the deepest wells of Irish sensibility, yet radically challenges their pollution. In addition to his other achievements, he has developed the conscience of the race.
Durcan is a prolific writer in that he has produced, and continues to produce, enormous bodies of poetry. With an ear to the ground, Durcan's writing has confronted most aspects of Irish socio-cultural debate. It may well be however that titles such as 'Priest Accused of Not Wearing a Condom' or 'The Divorce Referendum, Ireland, 1986' from Going Home to Russia have come to define the popular image of Durcan as a satirist whose basic relevance is to the immediate social situation. I argue that this view limits the possibilities of his aesthetic which in fact works to challenge the much larger questions of identity that Longley refers to above and that will be my concern in the following pages.