Sean O'Riordan - The poems - William Hurley - Book Club in October 2012

What kind of poet is Ó Ríordáin? Well, he's a poet who lived in his own head a lot. The poetry, some of it is highly intellectual. And poetry which is full of imagery, pictures, strong poetry, because he had a great penchant for drawing and the like. So there's ... If you take a poem like "Fiabhras" (Fever): "The bed is like mountains up high, The sickness sweltering in its centre," "The journey to the floor is long, And miles and miles away ... There's sitting and standing in life." "The sickness sweltering in its centre"; he has completely reinvented the kind of images ... or the kind of metaphors that we had had in Irish. So, he's a lyrical poet in that way, of course ... and a poet, I think, essentially, who had to write poetry to live. There's an Ó Ríordáin-esque language. You only have to ... if I opened the collection in any place, I mean, you know yourself, "When I looked in the mirror I saw" .... "Behind my back my two hands, And I understood from the colour of the skin That I was seeing them after my death,". I mean, like, they're Ó Ríordáin's lines, you know. You recognise the Ó Ríordáin-esque language throughout his work. Of course, you'd have to recognise it. But the most important thing, I my opinion, anyway, is .... that he took the native language, if you like, with him but he reinvented it. He was of course accused of mixing English with Irish, but, of course, we all mix English with Irish. But ... so, he took the language, if you like, from the Irish/English speaking district into the city .... ... and he took ... he put the language through the sieve of the city, through the sieve of English and took it back to the edge of the city again. And that's why he drew so much criticism and condemnation ... in that the other people who were taking care of the language, if you like, were trying to keep the language safe from the contamination from English, if you like. Or that they wanted to remain loyal to the classical forms of the language ... and that Ó Ríordáin was developing a new language, really. And, in that way, I mean, I can't speak for anyone but myself, but from my perspective, as a young lad growing up in Cork city ... I could read Ó Ríordáin through Irish and say to myself, this a modern poet who comes from city life, from the city streets ... even though, there wasn't that much there, as you'd say … he wasn't a city poet as we understand urban poets now ... like, say, New York poets and the like. But there's a taste of the city in his own life, and the city is to be found in places throughout his poetry, even though he's a private poet in that sense as well. I suppose one of the biggest poems to have an effect on me was "Fiabhras" (Fever) in "Brosna". Again, because of the strength, because of the pictures, because of the metaphors, because of the language manipulation as well ... and, I suppose, Ó Ríordáin's domain, the area of sickness, which he brings us into ... and he's kind of spaced out as well. I think that that “spacedness” in Ó Ríordáin's work resonated with the likes of me when I was 18 … 17, 18, 19. That is, I felt he was a bit of a spacer and I liked that. There was a kind of, strangely enough, even though he probably never listened to the Rolling Stones himself, I felt he was trying to be rock and roll, in his head. Of course, we should remember that he was on medication for most of his life, for tuberculosis. So, there's a spaced potential … that's in his work. But as well as that, of course, there was a period in his life when he was thinking of becoming a painter ... and an artist. And he drew throughout his life. So there was a time in his life when he didn't know if he'd choose literature or painting ... and he chose poetry. So that potential for vivid picture is very strong throughout all of his work. From my point of view, if it hadn’t been for Ó Ríordáin, I know I wouldn't be writing in Irish. I mean, I'm talking about, that during my time growing up in Cork city, there was a poet on my doorstep, as you'd say, who courageously embarked on a full literary project for his entire life. And, I suppose, showed that you could mould a language, we'll call it Irish, I mean it is a language, that you could mould Irish into a literary tool. And that you could write some poems that could be of equal standard with poetry from any country in Europe or ... especially Europe, I believe he's a European poet. And I think that Ó Ríordáin shouldn't be thought of through the narrow lens of Irish only, you know? In one way, Ó Ríordáin has been locked within Irish for years. I mean, Ó Ríordáin should be read in Serbian, in Croatian, in Russian and the like. And he will be in due course. And, it’s in that way we should look at his poetry, not just within the constraints of the Irish language tradition. It just so happens that he's writing in Irish, you know.