History, legend, faith, landscape, and love: in the world of international poetry, these subjects have been constant in the work of great Irish poets from bards in ancient days up to the present. Here are six great Irish poets to know about, plus two more.
William Butler Yeats, who lived from 1856 to 1939, focused on legend and myth early on, and later turned to both political and personal subjects. His use of classical form and lyrical language brought Yeats to lasting recognitionin the international poetry community. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, the first Irish person to receive this honor.
Patrick Kavanagh was born in 1904 on a farm in County Monaghan Writing about ideas inspired by musical sounds of his mother milking the cow, a neighbor’s donkey, and walking the fields on a cold night, he created poems which make him still one of the best loved poets in Ireland and in the international poetry world. He died in 1967.
Seamus Heaney, born in 1939, draws on his early background of political unrest in his work as well. He grew up in Derry, on the politically troubled border between the Republic and Northern Ireland and went to university at Queen’s College in Belfast. Growing up Catholic in Protestant Northern Ireland gave Heaney experiences of feeling like a stranger and not fitting in. This comes through in his work as do resonances of the conflicts of Irish life in the north.
Padraig Pearse wrote in both English and Irish languages. Hewrote about both the struggle for Ireland’s independence from England and personal, day to day matters as well. A leader of that struggle, he was executed for treason by the British after the Easter Rising in 1916. His work still inspires, whether he is considering the thoughts of a mother who has lost sons to war or the sound of children at play.
MáireMhacantSaoi was born in Dublin in 1922. She is one of Ireland's foremost poets of either gender. She was one of the first to bring a woman’s voice and perspective to Ireland's place in international poetry. She writes about history and about daily life, mainly in Irish. One of her best loved poems sets the Christmas story in the bustle of day to day life.
Thomas Kinsella, who was born in 1928, is another who writes of love and family, and does it with lyrical deftness. He is also know is a translator of TheTain, one the great poetic sagas of ancient Ireland.
These three ancient cycles deserve to be mentioned in any consideration of Irish poets, though the names of their creators are known only to time. The Fenian Cycle, the Ulster Cycle, and the sage of theTuatha De Danann tell stories which may be legend and may be true, in poetry and in prose.
Saint Patrick and Saint Columcille, both important figures in early Christian Ireland, are important in international poetry as well.They both left legacies of hymns and poems which are read and sung still today.
More Detail Please visit www.worldpoetrymovement.com
William Butler Yeats, who lived from 1856 to 1939, focused on legend and myth early on, and later turned to both political and personal subjects. His use of classical form and lyrical language brought Yeats to lasting recognitionin the international poetry community. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, the first Irish person to receive this honor.
Patrick Kavanagh was born in 1904 on a farm in County Monaghan Writing about ideas inspired by musical sounds of his mother milking the cow, a neighbor’s donkey, and walking the fields on a cold night, he created poems which make him still one of the best loved poets in Ireland and in the international poetry world. He died in 1967.
Seamus Heaney, born in 1939, draws on his early background of political unrest in his work as well. He grew up in Derry, on the politically troubled border between the Republic and Northern Ireland and went to university at Queen’s College in Belfast. Growing up Catholic in Protestant Northern Ireland gave Heaney experiences of feeling like a stranger and not fitting in. This comes through in his work as do resonances of the conflicts of Irish life in the north.
Padraig Pearse wrote in both English and Irish languages. Hewrote about both the struggle for Ireland’s independence from England and personal, day to day matters as well. A leader of that struggle, he was executed for treason by the British after the Easter Rising in 1916. His work still inspires, whether he is considering the thoughts of a mother who has lost sons to war or the sound of children at play.
MáireMhacantSaoi was born in Dublin in 1922. She is one of Ireland's foremost poets of either gender. She was one of the first to bring a woman’s voice and perspective to Ireland's place in international poetry. She writes about history and about daily life, mainly in Irish. One of her best loved poems sets the Christmas story in the bustle of day to day life.
Thomas Kinsella, who was born in 1928, is another who writes of love and family, and does it with lyrical deftness. He is also know is a translator of TheTain, one the great poetic sagas of ancient Ireland.
These three ancient cycles deserve to be mentioned in any consideration of Irish poets, though the names of their creators are known only to time. The Fenian Cycle, the Ulster Cycle, and the sage of theTuatha De Danann tell stories which may be legend and may be true, in poetry and in prose.
Saint Patrick and Saint Columcille, both important figures in early Christian Ireland, are important in international poetry as well.They both left legacies of hymns and poems which are read and sung still today.
More Detail Please visit www.worldpoetrymovement.com
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