Durcan communicates rich Insights into human experience using language that Is both accessible and appealing. Discuss this statement, supporting your answer with reference to the poetry of Paul Durcan on your course. Paul Durcan's poetry is recent, novel and refreshing. His insights are presented grotesquely and cuttingly at times, but his Poetry is full of balanced subtlety on closer examination. The poet writes unreservedly and openly about personal and social issues. His subject matter touches upon many sensitive aspects of the human experience: love for one's wife and children, love for one’s country, religious faith, breakdown of marriage, difficulties in his relationship with his father and homelessness to name a few. His language is different to what one expects from a poem: it is both simple and complex in its own unique way, but invariably accessible and appealing. | would like to elaborate on this statement using the poems Nessa, “Windfall”, 8 Parnell Hill, Cork, The Difficulty That Is Marriage, Wife Who Smashed Television Gets Jail, Parents, En Famille, 1979, Madman and Sport. Nessa, The Difficulty that is Marriage and Windfall... seem to be highly personal poems. The poet speak of falling in to the whirlpool of love with Nessa, being infinitely happy and then tragically alone. Nessa describes how the relationship evolves, and the speaker goes from just meeting this lady to wanting to spend the rest of his life with her: I'd have lain in the grass with her all my life with Nessa. Will you stay with me on the rocks? ....And for me let your red hair down? Scanned with CamScannerThe questions add a persuasive element to the intensity of direct speech. The image of him inviting her to follow him and unveil her innermost feelings appears so unreserved and honest, it certainly exposes the human experience of delving deeper into a serious Telationship. Sibilance throughout the poem adds to the whirlpool image through ‘onomatopoeia, reminding the reader of the sound of fast-flowing water. It may also mean that it was turbulent and perhaps difficult at times, once again making it so human. In “Windfall”, 8 Parnell Hill, Cork the poet adapts a joyful and satisfied tone. The opening But, then adds a casual quality to the speaker's tone. It implies that it doesn't matter what happened earlier that day, he was secure and very happy as we later find out, to be going home. Direct speech helps paint a picture that is so easy to relate to. The speaker tells us of feeling privileged: elected... sovereign. It is an age-old human experience to feel at home. Dreaming that life is a dream which is real: the speaker is remarking that he is living his dream. The poet adds a hyperbole to emphasise this happiness: It is ecstasy to breathe if you are at home in the world. The speaker compares the industrial view to a series of post-impressionist painting: The i i i industrial vista was my Mont Sainte-Victoire. Uniquely beautiful, these paintings often contain a foreboding darkness. This is significant to how this poem unfolds. The speaker wants to let the world know how happy his family is by calling his home Windfall. The other names sound pretentious; this contrasts to the genuine happiness of this home. The reader encounters more accessible social commentary: all the children of the nation are not cherished equally and... the best go homeless. There is some harsh criticism of Ireland that Durcan is known for: inequality, when it comes to the most unprotected of all — children, and homelessness - the poet himself was romeless at one point. Perhaps there is irony in the line the best go homeless as it relates Scanned with CamScannerto directly to later events in this poem. The finesse of Durcan's poetry is in his awareness that while he is happy at home, there are people out there who aren't. The speaker proceeds to list through a catalogue of happy colourful memories that are so homely they would appeal to anyone and some of them are so familiar to the Irish reader: With Granny in Felixstowe, with Granny in Ballymaloe;... Performing a headstand after First Holy Communion; Getting a kiss from the Bishop on Confirmation Day. This imagery is both accessible and appealing. Asea of your ownis home to Durcan. Interestingly, in Parents and Nessa the poet also refers to water and the sea to describe relationships making his poetry consistent and appealing. The last stanza is full of heart-breaking imagery of loneliness: Peering in the windows of other people's homes, wandering around from B&B to hostel. Instead of an exalting windfall that was having a family home, this wind is blowing him around suburban streets, like something that was discarded, and nobody will pick it up. In contrast to the blissful image of ignoring the phone together with his wife, now his own call is left unanswered: Windfall to Windfall. The reader sees a tragic image of a man chanting phrases he used to say to calm his children to calm himself, perhaps even needing to trick himself, just to not feel the pain of his exile: Crawling... escaping... We're almost home, pet, don't worry anymore, we're almost home. In The Difficulty That Is Marriage, the title and the opening line set the stage for a difficult emotional poem about a marriage, a human experience, one might argue, that is not for the faint-hearted, The alliteration adds to the image of difficulty: We disagree to disagree, we divide, we differ. Yet each night as | lie in bed beside you And you are faraway curled up in slee| Scanned with CamScannerl array the moonlit ceiling with a mosaic of question marks; On the one hand the image is distant, pensive, perhaps even tense: she is fast asleep while he is staring at the ceiling and thinking, not just thinking, questioning things, in the mysterious moonlight. On the other hand, curled up is an affectionate and appealing to describe someone's sleep. The speaker unambiguously states that this relations means a lot to him; he wouldn’t have it any other way: But | should rather live witl for ever. But I do not put you on a pedestal or throne: the poet is demonstrating his deep it into the human experience. He acknowledges above that the relationship is not without its ridiculousness of the entire situation. Scanned with CamScannerThis is echoed multiple times later in the poem: When she marched into the living room and declared... The language here creates an image of a dangerous tyrant. The kids are subliminally portrayed to be siding with the father from the opening of the poem. The violent image from the TV show features horrible treatment of another woman, who has the same name as his wife. The reader develops an empathy for this woman as the poet describes the inhumane experience. The elevated image of Queen Maeve is juxtaposed with the off-putting scene and the use of the term dame. Thad to bring the kids round to my mother's place, the husband stipulates that he had to take the kids away. The repeated reference to Kojak is verging on grotesque. Perhaps the poet is hinting that American culture has overwhelmed the composed Irish life and is snarling at her corpse. The woman leaves for the pub: Whereupon she disappeared off back down again to the pub. Why a woman is more comfortable in the pub rather than in a living room is unclear. Evidently, there is much we don't know about her. But the speaker would have, no doubt, exposed any fundamental faults he could have in his pathetic accusative tirade. After all, he must be the one pressing charges. The idea that the husband is at home with the kids rather than the wife, that she is in a pub and that she is violent is a reflection of a certain social disarray and misshapen family life that the poet witnessed in Ireland. In Parents the poet juxtaposes the image of a drowned child with parental love, albeit he acknowledges distance in the relationship. The image of bewildered and fearful parents (their mouths open, their foreheads furrowed) is enhanced through their portrayal as marine creatures incapable of speech. They are locked out, their ears are behind glass — the poet emphasises the distance between parents and a child. However the idea that they are always there is comforting: If she looked up she would see them... Copyright 2019. All rights reserved Personal use only. Sharing and distribution prohibited Scanned with CamScanner‘The theme of the confusion of childhood is further explored in En Famille, 1979, where the world is a dark school, but at least things are clear: tiny is tiny, and massive is massive. His choice of emotionally charged words indicates that the poet is probably referring to the simplicity of feelings rather than the world at large, showing the depth of his insight once again. Madman is another short poem featuring the theme of family. It tragically refers to a father as a madman. The experience of feeling misunderstood by one's parents is entirely human, but this poem gains a sinister meaning given the poet's biography: The only trouble about our madman is that he's our father. Finally, the poet's insights into family are echoed in Sport. We will assume that the speaker is the poet. There were not many fields In which you had hopes for me But sport was one of them. The opening line contains a pun: fields could refer to areas of practice, but it could also mean a physical field for team sports. The poet is tragically indulging in the awareness of his father’s disapproval through this play on words. Itis possible that there is an allegory hidden in the image of the alcoholic solicitor who.. castrated his best friend. Perhaps, the poet is implying that his father hurt and emasculated him, despite his affection, without fully understanding what he was doing, meaning well and not having any recollection of it. The repetition of Mental Hospital adds an almost legal, or clinical, precision to the poem. Obviously, the poet’s mind was as clear as anyone’s that day. In conclusion, Paul Durcan’s poetry is incisively exposing the essence of a variety of human experiences. His language is full of interesting references and allusions, his short Scanned with CamScannerpoems and seemingly unrhyming poems are accessible and appealing, especially to a modem day Irish audience. Scanned with CamScanner