The Stairwell
A poetry collection that follows loss and lived experience through the death of a brother and family memory. Homeric echoes deepen its structure, giving mourning a rich formal life.
Work Information
A poetry collection that turns grief and memory into a carefully built form.
The Stairwell shows Michael Longley's mature poetic craft, where private loss overlaps with classical resonance. Its short poems gradually intensify the emotional force of the whole.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Wake Forest Univ Pr
- Published
- 2014-11-07
- Pages
- 79 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.97 x 0.76 x 22.86 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781930630697
- ISBN-10
- 1930630697
- Price
- 2539 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Poetry
In The Stairwell, his tenth collection, Michael Longley&;s themes and forms reach a new intensity. The second part of the book is a powerful sequence of elegies for his twin brother, Peter, and the dominant mood elsewhere is elegiac. The title poem begins: &;I have been thinking about the music for my funeral. . .&; The two parts are also linked by Homer. Longley is well-known for his Homeric versions, and the Iliad is a presiding presence&;both in poems about the Great War and in the range of imagery that gives his twin&;s death a mythic dimension. Yet funeral music can be life-affirming.Longley has built this collection on intricate doublings, not only when he explores the tensions of twinship. The psychologically suggestive word &;stairwell&; is itself an ambiguous compound. These poems encompass birth as well as death, childhood and age, nature and art, the animal and human worlds, tenderness and violence, battlefield and &;homeland.&; The Stairwell is a richly textured, immensely moving work. Michael Longley has the rare ability to fuse emotional depth with complicated artistry: to make them, somehow, the same thing.
Michael Longley was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1939. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and studied Classics at Trinity College. Strongly influenced by the classics, he has alluded to his love of Homer in many of his poems. Early in his career, Longley worked as a schoolteacher in Dublin, London, and Belfast. He founded the literary program in the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and in 1970 he became the assistant director of that organization. In 2010, he was honored with the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of Aosdána, an affiliation for Irish artists. He is married to the critic Edna Longley and has three children. Michael Longley has written nine collections of poetry. Holding honorary doctorates from both Trinity College, Dublin, and Queens University, Belfast, Longley was awarded the prestigious Queens Gold Medal for Poetry in 2001. He has received numerous other awards for his work, including the American Irish Foundation Award, the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize, the Whitbread Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the International Griffin Poetry Prize, and the Ulster Tatler Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. He served as the Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2007?2010.
Reviews
-
Five Stars
Exactly as advertised
-
Gifts from a Master
Outside poetry circles Michael Longley is perhaps less well known than his late friend and contemporary, Seamus Heaney, yet he is more than worthy to stand with him. The two also work in different ways. Where Heaney was expansive, Longley's use of language is sharp focussed, though to call it spare would somehow be to misrepresent him, because he also has a lyrical apsect reminiscent of Yeats. He is also the absolute master of the short poem. There are a many such short poems in this collection, with three or four lines. No word is wasted. In certain ways particularly, in the nature poems about birds and flowers there is something reminiscent of translations of Japanese and Chinese poems. There is often an element of Zen-like humour and wisdom in his lines, for example in this Haiku: During the power cut Maisie wondered: Where is me? I have disappeared. But there is also warmth and humanity where Longly talks about family, or a delightful poem reminiscing about a girlfriend from his youth who was a rocker add who the poet wanted to introduce to the music of Sibelius, and many that show an acute observation of nature such as of birds and flowers. There are also poems linked into myth. Longley is a classical scholar as well as a naturalist. He blends allusions and versions of Homer to family history with stories of a relative who fought in the First World War and a long section of reminiscences around the death of a twin brother as well as nature. This collection also seems to be aware of the shadow of death, with several early poems where the poet talks about his own funeral, as well as the loss of friends and relatives. Though life is also celebrated with many poems about his grand children Heaney is quoted on the back as describing Longley as "A keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders." So hopefully the shadow of death is not auspcious. The poems here affirm life even if death is present. They are from a poet who will surely go down as one of today's greats. The use of language is a delight and radiates off the pages. Savour and enjoy these poems.
-
A sensitivity that never disappoints
Michael Longley is a poet of quiet sensitivity, deeply connected to the natural world and caring of his family. Everything he writes resonates with his intuitive responses to them both. The Stairwell is his most recent collection, brimmings with quiet beauty and an awareness of the significance of simple things. Born in Northern Ireland, there is little doubt that his spiritual home - indeed his inspiration - is in the natural wildness of Carigskeewaun, County Mayo. Here for many years he has retreated to reflect and write and be himself. It is here too that one day he wishes his ashes to be scattered. These poems are partly about the loss of his twin brother (though never morbid), partly about nature and partly about war. My personal favourite is 'Private Ungaretti', set on the Isonzo Front. Having visited these mountains and steep valleys where so many froze and died, and where Hemmingway set 'A Farewell to Arms' - I can recognise them. In just twelve short lines Longley perfectly captures the mood and essence of the place and of the moment. "...Purple shadow thrown / By mountains, the carnal / Pink of sunset, a green / Glade amid blitzed woodlands / Above the Isonzo..." If you've already discovered Michael Longley's special tenderness and voice (never sentimental) you will recognise the style and themes. If he's new to you, read all of him you can. 'Soul food' is a cliché, but his writing truly is. There is still beauty in this tormented world. Much of it is out there all around us but, as Longley so well understands, the best beauty is in us and in those we love. If you read no other poet, read Michael Longley.
-
Four and a half stars.
There is some great poetry here. His poems of remembrance are often very moving. Sometimes the shortness works to a poem's advantage, but sometimes not.
-
Longley a must for anyone who loves poetry.
As a lifelong fan of Michael Longley I am delighted with The Stairwell. Michael has lost none of his ability to touch us all, sometimes with just a few lines. Love of family and place , but happiest when close to the wild. He is always aware of the beauty and sadness of the human condition particularly so now as he looks back in his old age. A truly great poet!