Thomas Kinsella
Encyclopedia
Thomas Kinsella is an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher.
, County Dublin
. He spent much of his childhood with relatives in rural Ireland. He was educated in the Irish language
at the Model School, Inchicore and the O'Connell Christian Brothers School
. He entered University College Dublin
in 1946, initially to study psychology. After a few terms in college, he took a post in the Irish civil service and continued his university studies at night, having switched to humanities and arts.
His first poems were published in the university magazine The National Student and in Poetry Ireland. His first pamphlet, The Starlight Eye (1952), was published by Liam Miller's Dolmen Press
, as was Poems (1957), his first book-length publication. These were followed by Another September (1958), Moralities (1960), Downstream (1962), Wormwood (1966), and the long poem Nightwalker (1967).
Marked as it was by the influence of W. H. Auden
and dealing with a primarily urban landscape and with questions of romantic love, Kinsella's early work marked him as distinct from the mainstream of Irish poetry in the 1950s and 1960s, which tended to be dominated by the example of Patrick Kavanagh
.
He received the Honorary Freedom of the City of Dublin in May 2007.
illustrated by Louis le Brocquy
.
The second major work of translation was an anthology of Irish poetry An Duanaire: 1600-1900, Poems of the Dispossessed (1981), translated by Kinsella and edited by Seán Ó Tuama
. He also edited Austin Clarke
's Selected Poems and Collected Poems (both 1974) for Dolmen and The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse (1986).
, and in 1970 he became a professor of English at Temple University
. While at Temple, he developed a program for students to study in Ireland called "the Irish Experience".
In 1972, he started Peppercanister Press to publish his own work. The first Peppercanister production was Butcher's Dozen, a satirical response to the Widgery Tribunal into the events of Bloody Sunday
. This poem drew on the aisling
tradition and specifically on Brian Merriman
's Cúirt An Mheán Óiche. Kinsella's interest in the publishing process dates back at least as far as helping set the type for The Starlight Eye 20 years earlier.
In the Peppercanister poems, Kinsella's work ceased to be Audenesque and became more clearly influenced by American modernism, particularly the poetry of Ezra Pound
, William Carlos Williams
and Robert Lowell
. In addition, the poetry started to focus more on the individual psyche as seen through the work of Carl Jung
. These tendencies first appeared in the poems of Notes from the Land of the Dead (1973) and One (1974).
In the 1980s, books such as Her Vertical Smile (1985) Out of Ireland (1987) and St Catherine's Clock (1987) marked a move away from the personal to the historical. This continued into a sometimes darkly satirical focus on a contemporary landscape through the late 1980s and 1990s in such books as One Fond Embrace (1988), Personal Places (1990), Poems From Centre City (1990) and The Pen Shop (1996). His Collected Poems appeared in 1996 and again in an updated edition in 2001.
Early life and work
Kinsella was born in LucanLucan
Lucan is the common English name of the Roman poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus.Lucan may also refer to:-People:*Arthur Lucan , English actor*Sir Lucan the Butler, Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend...
, County Dublin
County Dublin
County Dublin is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Dublin Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the city of Dublin which is the capital of Ireland. County Dublin was one of the first of the parts of Ireland to be shired by King John of England following the...
. He spent much of his childhood with relatives in rural Ireland. He was educated in the Irish language
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
at the Model School, Inchicore and the O'Connell Christian Brothers School
Congregation of Christian Brothers
The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a worldwide religious community within the Catholic Church, founded by Blessed Edmund Rice. The Christian Brothers, as they are commonly known, chiefly work for the evangelisation and education of youth, but are involved in many ministries, especially with...
. He entered University College Dublin
University College Dublin
University College Dublin ) - formally known as University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's largest, and Ireland's second largest, university, with over 1,300 faculty and 17,000 students...
in 1946, initially to study psychology. After a few terms in college, he took a post in the Irish civil service and continued his university studies at night, having switched to humanities and arts.
His first poems were published in the university magazine The National Student and in Poetry Ireland. His first pamphlet, The Starlight Eye (1952), was published by Liam Miller's Dolmen Press
Dolmen Press
The Dolmen Press was founded by Liam and Josephine Miller in 1951. The Press operated in Dublin from 1951 until Liam Miller's death in 1987. A printing division was opened in the late 1950s as an additional revenue source, and was eventually shut down in 1979...
, as was Poems (1957), his first book-length publication. These were followed by Another September (1958), Moralities (1960), Downstream (1962), Wormwood (1966), and the long poem Nightwalker (1967).
Marked as it was by the influence of W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
and dealing with a primarily urban landscape and with questions of romantic love, Kinsella's early work marked him as distinct from the mainstream of Irish poetry in the 1950s and 1960s, which tended to be dominated by the example of Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh was an Irish poet and novelist. Regarded as one of the foremost poets of the 20th century, his best known works include the novel Tarry Flynn and the poems Raglan Road and The Great Hunger...
.
He received the Honorary Freedom of the City of Dublin in May 2007.
Translations and editing
At Miller's suggestion, Kinsella turned his attention to the translation of early Irish texts. He produced versions of Longes Mac Unsnig and The Breastplate of St Patrick in 1954 and of Thirty-Three Triads in 1955. His most significant work in this area was collected in two important volumes. The first of these was The Táin, (Dolmen 1969 and Oxford 1970), a version of the Táin Bó CúailngeTáin Bó Cúailnge
is a legendary tale from early Irish literature, often considered an epic, although it is written primarily in prose rather than verse. It tells of a war against Ulster by the Connacht queen Medb and her husband Ailill, who intend to steal the stud bull Donn Cuailnge, opposed only by the teenage...
illustrated by Louis le Brocquy
Louis le Brocquy
Louis le Brocquy is an Irish painter born in Dublin. His work has received many accolades in a career that spans seventy years of creative practice...
.
The second major work of translation was an anthology of Irish poetry An Duanaire: 1600-1900, Poems of the Dispossessed (1981), translated by Kinsella and edited by Seán Ó Tuama
Seán Ó Tuama
Seán Ó Tuama was an Irish poet, playwright and academic.-Life:Raised in Cork city and educated at the North Monastery school and University College Cork, Ó Tuama first came to prominence in 1950 with his anthology of modern Irish language poetry titled Nuabhéarsaíocht 1939-1949.Notable academic...
. He also edited Austin Clarke
Austin Clarke (poet)
thumb|300px|Austin Clarke Bridge in [[Templeogue]]Austin Clarke was one of the leading Irish poets of the generation after W. B. Yeats. He also wrote plays, novels and memoirs...
's Selected Poems and Collected Poems (both 1974) for Dolmen and The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse (1986).
Later poetry
In 1965, Kinsella left the civil service to become writer in residence at Southern Illinois UniversitySouthern Illinois University
Southern Illinois University is a state university system based in Carbondale, Illinois, in the Southern Illinois region of the state, with multiple campuses...
, and in 1970 he became a professor of English at Temple University
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...
. While at Temple, he developed a program for students to study in Ireland called "the Irish Experience".
In 1972, he started Peppercanister Press to publish his own work. The first Peppercanister production was Butcher's Dozen, a satirical response to the Widgery Tribunal into the events of Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday (1972)
Bloody Sunday —sometimes called the Bogside Massacre—was an incident on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, in which twenty-six unarmed civil rights protesters and bystanders were shot by soldiers of the British Army...
. This poem drew on the aisling
Aisling
The aisling , or vision poem, is a poetic genre that developed during the late 17th and 18th centuries in Irish language poetry...
tradition and specifically on Brian Merriman
Brian Merriman
Brian Merriman or in Irish Brian Mac Giolla Meidhre was an Irish language poet and teacher. His single surviving work of substance, the 1000-line long Cúirt An Mheán Oíche is widely regarded as the greatest comic poem in the history of Irish literature.-Merriman's life:Merriman appears to have...
's Cúirt An Mheán Óiche. Kinsella's interest in the publishing process dates back at least as far as helping set the type for The Starlight Eye 20 years earlier.
In the Peppercanister poems, Kinsella's work ceased to be Audenesque and became more clearly influenced by American modernism, particularly the poetry of Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
and Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
. In addition, the poetry started to focus more on the individual psyche as seen through the work of Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
. These tendencies first appeared in the poems of Notes from the Land of the Dead (1973) and One (1974).
In the 1980s, books such as Her Vertical Smile (1985) Out of Ireland (1987) and St Catherine's Clock (1987) marked a move away from the personal to the historical. This continued into a sometimes darkly satirical focus on a contemporary landscape through the late 1980s and 1990s in such books as One Fond Embrace (1988), Personal Places (1990), Poems From Centre City (1990) and The Pen Shop (1996). His Collected Poems appeared in 1996 and again in an updated edition in 2001.
Poetry collections
- Poems (Dublin, The Dolmen Press, 1956);
- Another September (Dolmen, 1958);
- Poems & Translations (New York: Atheneum, 1961);
- Downstream (Dolmen, 1962);
- The Clergyman (Dublin: St Sepulchre's Press, 1965);
- Tear (Cambridge, MA: Pym-Randall Press, 1969);
- Nightwalker and Other Poems (Dolmen, Oxford, New York, Oxford University Press, 1968; New York, Knopf, 1969);
- Ely Place (Dublin: Tara Telephone Publications/St. Sepulchre's Press, 1972);
- Butcher's Dozen (Dublin, Peppercanister, 1972);
- The Good Fight (Peppercanister 1973);
- Notes from the Land of the Dead and Other Poems (Knopf, 1973);
- Fifteen Dead (Peppercanister, 1979);
- One and Other Poems (Dolmen, Oxford University Press, 1979);
- Peppercanister Poems 1972-1978 (Dolmen 1979; Winston Salem, North Carolina, Wake Forest University Press, 1979);
- One Fond Embrace (Deerfield, MA: Deerfield Press, 1981);
- St Catherine's Clock (Oxford University Press, 1987);
- Blood & Family (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988);
- Poems from Centre City (Peppercanister, 1990);
- Madonna and Other Poems (Peppercanister, 1991);
- Open Court (Peppercanister, 1991);
- The Pen Shop (Peppercanister, 1997);
- The Familiar (Peppercanister, 1999);
- Godhead (Peppercanister, 1999);
- Citizen of the World (Peppercanister, 2000);
- Littlebody (Peppercanister, 2000);
- Collected Poems 1956-2001 (Oxford University Press, 2001);
- Marginal Economy (Peppercanister, 2006);
- Collected Poems 1956-2001 (Wake Forest University Press, 2006);
- Belief and Unbelief (Peppercanister, 2007);
- Man of War (Peppercanister, 2007);
- Selected Poems (Carnanet Press, 2007; Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2010).
Prose collections
- The Dual Tradition: An Essay on Poetry and Politics in Ireland (Carcanet, 1995);
- Readings in Poetry (Peppercanister, 2006);
- Prose Occasions: 1956-2006 (Carcanet, 2009).
Poetry and prose
- A Dublin Documentary (O'Brien Press, 2007). (Selected poems with photographs and author's commentary)
Translation
- The Táin, translated from the Irish epic Táin Bó CúailngeTáin Bó Cúailngeis a legendary tale from early Irish literature, often considered an epic, although it is written primarily in prose rather than verse. It tells of a war against Ulster by the Connacht queen Medb and her husband Ailill, who intend to steal the stud bull Donn Cuailnge, opposed only by the teenage...
, with illustrations by Louis le BrocquyLouis le BrocquyLouis le Brocquy is an Irish painter born in Dublin. His work has received many accolades in a career that spans seventy years of creative practice...
(Dolmen, 1969; Oxford University Press, 1970). - An Duanaire - Poems of the Dispossessed, an anthology of Gaelic poems edited by Seán Ó Tuama (Dolmen, 1981).
Audio
- Fair Eleanor, O Christ Thee Save (Claddagh Records, 1971)
- Thomas Kinsella - Poems 1956-2006 (Claddagh Records, 2007).
External links
- Profile at Carcanet Press
- Wake Forest University Press North American publisher of Kinsella
- 'The Freedom of the City', review of Selected Poems in the Oxonian Review
- Ambit No 162 - 2000 Review Review No 165 - 2001 Ambit
- Profile and poems at Richmond Review
- Profile and poems at Jacket Magazine April 2005