Desmond Egan

Desmond Egan. Writer, poet and publisher. , Desmond Egan was born in this house in 1936. He was the son of Tom and Kathleen Egan and was educated locally, and later at St. Finian's College, Mullingar where he received a Classical education learning both Latin and Greek. Having studied in Maynooth he returned to St. Finian's to teach both English and Greek in 1962, and while there he completed his Masters in English. In 1971 he moved to St Patrick's Classical School in Navan and the following year moved to Newbridge College where he taught English until 1987. Since 1987 he has been a full-time writer., In 1981 he married Vivienne Abbott, a native of Mullingar, and a lecturer at Cathal Brugha Street College of Catering. Vivienne Abbott is the author of several books including 'Menu French explained' and 'An Irishman's revolution: the Abbe Edgeworth and Louis XVI'. The couple have two daughters: Kate and Bebhinn., Desmond and his brother Tomas and a friend Kevin Swan came together to found The Goldsmith Press. The birth of this press was hailed in the national press., Desmond Egan's first published volume Midland was produced in hardback only, and appeared in September 1973, the reviewers of the day all commented on the quality of the production and the Brian Bourke drawings which it contained. Michael Friel writing in Hibernia described it as "A quiet and meditative collection concerned with life and loneliness in a rather melancholy fashion". For anyone from Athlone there was the immediate interest in poems such as 'Filling Up' and 'Canal' which were replete with local images., The following year Egan produced his second collection Leaves with its wonderful cover portrait by Charles Cullen. It was obvious even then that Desmond Egan was going to be a prolific writer, he might have been a slow starter but there was nothing going to hold him back., Desmond Egan has been the recipient of countless awards and honours and has earned himself a place of distinction in the world of twentieth century Irish poetry. He has published sixteen collections of poetry, a collection of prose writing 'The Death of metaphor", translations of two Greek plays 'Medea' and 'Philoctetes'. His poetry has been translated into many languages. His first 'Collected Poems' was published in the U.S. in 1983 when he was the recipient of the National Poetry Foundation of America Award. The distinguished critic Hugh Kenner said of this volume "With Desmond Egan we come to a poet who is hospitable in a new way to the literary traditions of Europe and America - in a way no English poet is". He has also produced a "Selected Poems", a casette 'Desmond Egan Poet's Choice' and has been the subject of a U.S. documentary Video. However the greatest achievement of Desmond Egan as a living poet is that he has been the subject of two critical studies: 'The Poet and his work: Desmond Egan' edited by Hugh Kenner (published by Northern Lights in Maine, U.S.A. in 1990) and 'Desmond Egan: a critical study" by Brian Arkins (published by Milestone Press in Arkansas in 1992)., ATHLONE? , Des Egan , as from a garden of original grace and sin something, of twisty lanes of oblique streets , of voices calm as the landscape , a walk a spiritual accent , lingers in fingerprints everywhere, makes me persist an interviewer of sorts , dogged with simple questions my earphones squeaking , cop yourself on because all art , contains an element of the ridiculous, still , elbows on the shiny stone my soul without ambition , keeps trying to open a door on a street or two , the light the footsteps the brief voices , that pull at our amniotic fluids that fix our horoscopes , more than any stars, and while the town that is only my town flows , by with its river rhythms , shimmery so slow and dignified with lives i , will glide like a crow up the narrow casual ways , up through shopdoors and windows the many storeys , of an idea shared like a zodiac , by faces that turn like gables , by friends by neighbours , by singsongs from pubs curling out in smoke , uphill towards my own home, bred born and reared inside me it tolls , more slowly now turning all into afternoons , with something of that sad echo of the Barrack chimes bringing , together in quiet as if everything were waiting , the sweetshops people roads the Battery hills of the past , my Connaught Street, angelus of the small place we discover , has left us in exile everywhere else, someone waves from the front door and turns back in, CRAVEN'S , Des Egan , when you walked to the counter the , floorboards groaned making you an intruder , and their wooden store closed in , dark ancient as a lane, and there was Mrs. , with her apron and English name or her husband , a century older than we and serious , as his suit and waistcoat and white moustache , that seemed to belong inside here , so that seeing them out strolling was a shock, you mostly went there for toffee , or for some coconut chocolate i can't put a name on , and he would bang the slab to shiver off , a junk like glass then gravely , tear a square of newspaper hanging from twine , curl a deliberate cone and drop in , the town i would never know, (untitled) as published in ATHLONE ATHLONE, The street must know you, The Shamrock Bar opposite , its bared upstairs flittering now that , Katie and Jim have abandoned it , to staring cupboards, Main Street that wasn't , Fry Place where day still shivers, Divil thank the begrudgers , that crackle of a bicycle feud in , my father's only speech ever, in her Sunday cloak Sister Dympna , beats time she shrills , Full in her panting heart of Rome , at the standing conventgirls , singing unconvinced, ancient backyards of our youth , the stonewalls that outlasted us , in purple wallflowers, proud Connaught Street , whose shops would close for a funeral , collapsing into flats, Gordon shuffling past Sheffield's , without the Singles trophy, Syd and the Saints , rising it in The Crescent , the dancers all agreeing they couldn't , tell a waltz from a samba, the sawdust whine , below a lane of high houses , the canal filled-in for no reason , the haunted house, beaten on Saturday , and even 25 years later , vicarious disappointment, Saturday piano creeping , from the bungalow in the cul de sac , who needs fiction, under the shadow of the Castle , the cornerstone of the Town Bridge , was glassy from years of elbows , where did it go , and the leaners, eel nets draped from poles , near the wier's golden roar , at the dying of metaphor, Cluniac bones I once glimpsed , resound always in the crypt, one Christmas Day and , the squishing of water pistols , across our empty street , in the holy quiet , someone is knocking at the pub