I am recommending, today a book called No Earthly Estate: God and Patrick Kavanagh, an Anthology, ed Tom Stack, Columba Press 2004.
Excerpted , ‘No Earthly Estate , Kavanagh, Colum and Strong’ (December 2010) .
‘The wordsmiths mentioned above , Kavanagh, Strong, and Colum are but a tiny example of the triumph of art and literature against what amounts to a repressive and regressive approach to the Arts. They are not contemporary poets but provide for the new writer the amazing root-system which forms Irish Literature in all its wonderousness. Would only that those who claim to lead us politically were aware of their cultural heritage , story-telling and indeed the violence of words that make up this rich history of multifaceted voice and poetry !’
The Devil , by Patrick Kavanagh.
‘ I met the devil too,
and the adjectives by which I would describe him are these:
Solemn,
Boring,
Conservative.
He was a man the world would appoint to a Board,
He would be on the list of invitees for a bishop’s garden-party,
He would look like an artist.
He was the fellow who wrote in newspapers about music,
Got into a rage when someone laughed;
He was serious about unserious things;
You had to be careful about his inferiority complex
For he was conscious of being uncreative.”
Chris Murray 