Desert Island Poems: Epic by Patrick Kavanagh

Homer

Epic (1960)

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 the plot defying blue cast-steel –

‘Here is the march along these iron stones’

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 Iliad from such

A local row. Gods make their own importance.

The Global in the Local

I’ve been reflecting in a recent blog post about how the global can be found in the local. What do I mean by that? Well, I think this poem by Patrick Kavanagh summarises it beautifully: it’s basically the idea that anything that happens in your locale or local community is really happening the world over. Kavanagh made a poetic career out of celebrating the local and, in doing so, went on to inspire poets like Seamus Heaney to have confidence in viewing their own rural lives and experiences as every bit as important as lives lived in big cities in foreign countries. So, I wanted to reflect on what I love about this poem and how Kavanagh achieves such a lasting message.

Sonnet?

The poem is 14 lines, but it doesn’t have a rhyming pattern, so while it doesn’t strictly conform to the sonnet conventions, it’s interesting that he should have picked the quatorzain, and perhaps in doing so he’s countering the ‘Epic’ expectations he has set up in the title. After all, the poem refers to The Iliaid one of the great epic poems, but the poet goes on to undercut and poke fun at all of the myth surrounding that by writing such a short poem. 

Line Endings?

On first reading, I wasn’t sure about Kavanagh’s choice of line endings, particularly with such moments as ‘I made the Iliad from such…/ a local row.’ The other one is ‘Which/was more important?’ However, on closer inspection I think the clunky line endings undermine the epic tradition and lend a tone of haphazardness to the proceedings making it conversational and demotic, suggesting that the big events in life and indeed in history are simply local events which have been recorded.

Humour and Colloquial Tone

It’s true that Kavanagh is definitely adopting a mocking tone in this poem. We can see this straight from the opening line with ‘I have lived in important places…’ We would never expect such a grand statement from a poet like Kavanagh whose entire oeuvre is based upon staying true to his local roots and in many ways he represents the down-to-earth Irish poet we’ve come to recognise almost as a stereotype. However, he is playing with that expectation and wrong-footing the reader in some ways, by adopting a somewhat haughty, supercilious tone by asserting he has ‘lived in important places’. However he’s only half-joking as the whole point of this poem is to make the reader realise that in paying attention to the events of rural life and parochial happenings he really has lived in important times. Is the poem, then, elevating the events of the parish or simply making us see them in light of the events of ancient Greece? I think it’s a bit of both. In referring to world war two as ‘the year of the Munich bother’ and using that euphemism of ‘bother’ he perfectly renders the scene humorous without disrespecting the horrors of the war, because he’s suggesting that these local events bring their own gravity. The poet seems to be questioning this himself when he asked: ‘which was more important?’

Use of Dialogue

I’ve written before about how I feel dialogue is a much underused technique in poetry and we can see that Kavanagh uses it to great effect in this poem. In the poem we have the voices of Duffy, McCabe and Homer himself, although the latter is not in speech marks. In using these voices Kavanagh manages to add to the texture of the poem and act almost as a journalist or an intermediary, highlighting the poet’s stance as somewhat neutral. Indeed, without the quotation marks at the end of the poem, it’s hard to know whether ‘Gods make their own importance' is the voice of Homer or Kavanagh himself. 

The Last Line and Kavanagh’s Search for Authority

The ending of this poem is memorable for the ghost of Homer ‘whispering’ to Kavanagh that he ‘made the Iliad from/ such a local row’ and also for that bold assertion that ‘Gods make their own importance.’ I must admit on first reading I had to think twice about the Gods making their own importance, but what I think Kavanagh is saying here hinges on the word ‘importance’ which echoes back to the first line and its ‘important places’. In the poem Kavanagh is searching for importance, validity and an authority to ratify his writings about the locale as ‘important’. In the poem he seeks authority, and has it granted, or confirmed, even if it is just from the ‘ghost’ of Homer and even though the voice is only ‘whispering’. Ultimately, Kavanagh seems to be coming to the conclusion here that a poet doesn’t need their writing to be authorised by anyone but themselves, as ‘Gods make their own importance’ with the word ‘make’ also having connotations of the idea of the poet as ‘Makar’ as they have it in Scots, the poet as ‘maker’ and, in many ways, the voice of authority itself.