Trace Kavanagh's development / poetic hegira from the early poems through to the late poems
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"A poet is never one of those people. He is detached, remote, and the life of small time dances and talks about football would not be for him. He might take part but would not belong" - Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh imagines, invents, dreams and keeps between himself and reality the impenetrable barrier of decorative or ideal treatment. However, in spite of his insights into the world of imagination, he cannot fully comprehend the triviality of the vegetative world which is but a shadow of the world he can understand. His life was an eventful one, with a near-death experience in 1955, due to lung cancer, acting as a moment of change. His interest in literature and poetry marked him out as different to other people in his local place, Inniskeen. In a society that was insular and agricultural, a man's worth was measured by the straightness of the furrows he could plough, rather than the lines of poetry he could write.
Kavanagh is the critic, the stranger, the watcher. He is the only one within his locality who can see with and not through the eye. The people, in the poem Inniskeen Road, on the bikes going "by in twos and threes" can see nothing but the obvious. Kavanagh is an artist and can see everything but the obvious. In the poem Shancoduff, he attaches religious and moral qualities to hills that would seem irrelavent or unimportant to many. He compares the hills to "Lot's wife", which is a reference to the Book of Genesis where God destroys two towns only sparing Lot and his wife. He paints a bleak picture of the hills, describing them as never having "seen the sun rising". However, these hills are the microcosm of the macrocosm in the eyes of Kavanagh. "They are my alps and I have climbed the Matterhorn". This is an example of a place that holds a special meaning to Kavanagh.
The world Kavanagh has gained access to via his art comes at the price of social exclusion. In his poem Inniskeen Road, his isolation and solitude are clearly evident. The locals are speaking "half-talk code of mysteries" and "wink and elbow language of delight". This colloquial language is not understood by Kavanagh. As a result, he feels secluded from the community. The fact that he speaks of their actions as "code" emphasises his exclusion from the group. He also equates himself to Alexander Selkirk, identifying with his solitary existance.
Kavanagh's use of a stone as a symbol in Inniskeen Road is an interesting one. It symbolises the incognito that clouds the language of those of a less poetic disposition. He describes how there is not a "footfall tapping secrecies of stone". The stones hold the secrets of the village. W.B. Yeats uses the symbol of the stone in the poem Easter 1916, when he states that "hearts through summer and winter alone seem enchanted to a stone". Normal social inclusion is foreign to both of them.
In Advent, Kavanagh tries to alter the way in which he sees things. He wanted to once again celebrate the wonders of the simple aspects of life, appreciate the wonders of the ordinary and everyday, like a child, without having to rationalise. He believed that by doing so, he would recreate the sense of wonder and awe he had for the world as a child.
He begins with the hope that advent will be able to "charm back the luxury of a child's soul". A child has the ability to view things in the world, uncontaminated by the opinions of anybody else, similar to the poem Child by Sylvia Plath, where she states that "your eye is the one absolute beautiful thing". Patrick Kavanagh wants to return to this state of mind, being able to see everything through the eye including the obvious. He desires to see "the newness that was in every stale thing" when we looked at it as children.
Kavanagh reminds us of his thoughts from Shancoduff, which showed us the beauty and poetry in the rough and shadowy fields which constituted the famil farm. He cites examples of what amazed him when he wrote Shancoduff; "the spirit-shocking wonder in the black slanting ulster hill". Here, Kavanagh is refering to his "alps" of which he has "climbed the matterhorn". He wants to relive those times, where he was able to see importance in things which appeared ordinary to a person who can see nothing but through the eye.
Thirteen years after writing Advent, Kavanagh was diagnosed as having lung cancer and had a lung removed. This event was a major turning point in his life and career. He treated it as a spiritual rebirth which in turn sparked renewed euphoria. In his poem Canal Bank Walk, Kavanagh compares the "green waters of the canal" to a biblical river enriched with saving powers. Like baptismal water, they have the power to redeem, to save the poet. The "pouring redemption" of the water is symbolic of the recovery of his body but also his ability to compose. He has found the renewal he was looking for in his previous poems, and a new poetic philosophy.
The image of the "couple kissing on an old seat" represents new life. Kavanagh incorporates the young in his poetry unlike W.B. Yeats who despises youth. He has now realised his potential of rejuvenating the youthfulness of his eyes, something he was seeking in Advent. As Kavanagh said; "As a poet I was born about 1955, the place of my birth being the banks of the Grand Canal". The glory of God's creation is reflected in the "fabulous grass" and the "bird gathering materials for the nest". There is a great harmony between man, God and nature and this is reproduced in the imagery in the final lines of the poem: "For the soul need to be honoured with a new dress woven from green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven".
Kavanagh said; "My hegira was to the Grand Canal Bank where again I saw the beauty of water and green grass and the magic of light". In his poem Lines Written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, he celebrates the beauty of the Grand Canal area, an area in which Kavanagh spent much of his time recuperating. He portrays the area as a tranquil place, exemplified in the line; "so stilly greeny at the heart of summer". This place is important in the eyes of Kavanagh. He has found the spiritual awakening he was seeking in his poem Advent. It is a source of poetic inspiration for him and he wishes others to be affected by it, "just a canal-bank seat for the passer-by". He hoped people would gain the same pleasure from the canal that he so patently did.
Kavanagh's reputation as a poet is based on the lyrical qualities of his work, his mastery of language and form and his ability to transform the ordinary and the banal into something of significance. These poems I have discussed trace Kavanagh's development as an artist and as a human being, showing clearly how certain incidents during his lifetime affected his writing and the way in which he could see things. As he rightly says, "the things that really matter are casual, insignificant little things".
