The disturbing avatar of the month thread

Whistling Pops · Post by **Whistling Pops** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 9:06 pm

dapple wrote:
I hereby demand that Dapple brings back the best ever avatar on these boards.
Is this what you're looking for, dubhlinn?

I love this one!!

Lambchop · Post by **Lambchop** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 3:42 am

This . . .

Lines Written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin

"Erected to the Memory of Mrs. Dermot O'Brien"

O commemorate me where there is water,
Canal water preferably, so stilly
Greeny at the heart of summer, Brother
Commemorate me thus beautifully.
Where by a lock Niagariously roars
The falls for those who sit in the tremendous silence
Of mid-July. No one will speak in prose
Who finds his way to these Parnassian islands
A swan goes by head low with many apologies.
Fantastic light looks through the eyes of bridges
And look! a barge comes bringing from Athy
And other far-flung towns mythologies.
O commemorate me with no hero-courageous
Tomb--just a canal-bank seat for the passer-by.

. . . is exquisite. Simply exquisite.

Is there more like it?

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 4:28 am

Lambchop,
Here area few links about the great Paddy Kavanagh.

http://www.tcd.ie/English/patrickkavanagh/index.html

http://www.spinfo.uni-koeln.de/~dm/poets.html#Kavanagh

http://www.poemhunter.com/patrick-kavanagh/poet-6773/

http://www.hoganstand.com/general/ident ... vanagh.htm

There is not a lot of his poetry available on the web alas but his selected poems is in print though I can't seem to find a link right now - best try some good American sources for poetry books.

Kavanagh, like Austin Clarke, have for far too long been living in the shadow of Yeats but are major poets both.
Kavanagh also set to of his poems to music - he suggested traditional tunes really - one being Raglan Road and the other being If ever you go to Dublin Town. The Dubliners have recorded both versions so PM me with a E-Mail addy and I'll zap them over to you.
Kavanagh was an Irish Wordsworth in the sense that his work is all based on his almost mystical love of Nature and he has the incredible gift of making the common everyday sight of ditches and wild flowers appear beautiful and light infused.

Slan,
D.

edited to add another link.
D.

scarhand · Post by **scarhand** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 4:54 am

i love that one that begins "i am here in a garage in monaghan . . ."
carrickmacross in monaghan is my family ancestral home.
thanks for sharing those sites.

izzarina · Post by **izzarina** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 9:20 am

I think that Stacey had some good ones that disturbed quite a few people

I'm just glad that no one thinks MINE are disturbing. That would disturb me greatly

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 10:50 am

Cran has had about a zillion, I guess. I couldn't stand the bottle one. Bleccch! My fave of yours, Cran, was the first one (I think). It was a sillouhette of a wild looking girl with glowing eyes. Very cool, that.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 10:35 pm

dubhlinn wrote:
Cranberry wrote:I've also never really understood dubhlinn's:

Cran,
My avatar is a sculpture of the guy above,who used to sit on the original wooden bench and write stuff like this..

Lines Written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin ....
(images removed to prevent excessive band width absorption)

....Slan, D.

I liked that man... you get a free point for that.

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 10:52 pm

Here's my favorite kavanagh poem:

Patrick Kavanagh wrote: Epic

I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided: who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting 'Damn your soul'
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step that plot-defying blue cast-steel -
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind
He said: I made the Illiad from such
A local Row. Gods make their own importance.

I lose the thread in the two lines about McCabe, but the rest is as strong as any poem I've read.

jGilder · Post by **jGilder** » Sat Jun 18, 2005 11:00 pm

dubhlinn wrote: Kavanagh also set to of his poems to music - he suggested traditional tunes really - one being Raglan Road and the other being If ever you go to Dublin Town.

The now famous call-in chat show where Seamus Tansey and the Kerry box player were both on the Joe Duffy show (RTE radio). I listened into the show, on line, the following day and some guy sung a song he had written about the whole Tansey affair in the style of P. Kavanaugh. My sides hurt for the rest of the day needless to say.