Interview with Noel Monahan.
Noel was born in Granard, Co Longford. Noel has four collections of poetry all published by Salmon, Ireland.
“ Opposite Walls, 1991. “ Snowfire”, 1995.“ Curse of The Birds”, 2000 and “The Funeral Game”, 2004.
His poetry has been translated into Italian, Romanian, French and Russian and he has read his work and given workshops at numerous Summer Schools & Festivals throughout Ireland.
Marie: Welcome, Noel. It seems fitting we’re conducting this interview here in Granard, your hometown.
Noel: It’s great to be back in my hometown. I remember coming into this very space in the library in Granard as a child and looking through the books, many of them Lives of the Saints and taking home these heavenly tomes to the delight of my parents. It wasn’t that I was a very religious child, more a question of limited reading available.
Marie: The North Longford Landscape and its people are the inspiration for many of your poems. Can you remember what it was that first fired your imagination and made you want to be a poet?
Noel: Growing up in Granard was a recipe for poetry in the 1950s. You see, I belonged to the Old Ireland as a child, the DeValera Ireland of the 50s. Still part of the frugal existence of the 30s and 40s. We were still under the spell of that famous speech of Mr. DeValera on St. Patrick’s Day when he addressed the nation in 1943 and spoke of: ‘the comely maidens and serene old age’. There was no television then. I lived my boyhood years' outdoors, hunting with a dog, beating down the bushes to rise a hare, fishing on my own. You couldn’t avoid the landscape. It entered the bloodstream unawares. I was soaking it up, taking it all in and I had no idea of poetry at the time but it was all around me.
Marie: You have an acutely observed affinity with nature and there is a strong spirituality in your poetry. Am I right in saying that it is a pagan landscape you celebrate and not a Christian one?
Noel: Interesting question. You see deep down in the Irish people is this pagan spirit. And it’s not too far down either. I feel we are all pagans at heart, still struggling with Christianity. Our God is the God of the outdoors, the God of holy wells, sacred trees and places. You find this very much in Kavanagh’s work and people with a farming background like my own, find our spirituality in the fields, rivers and lakes and as a child I found a spiritual uplifting in a bird’s nest but I couldn’t express it then. I had to wait years for the words to come.
Marie: The artist frequently ‘holds up a mirror’ to society and there is irony and anger in many of your poems. It can’t be easy to be controversial whilst living as you do, in a small close-knit community. Has this ever censored you? Have local people ever responded negatively to your more controversial poems?
Noel: Have I been censored? Yes. Have people objected to some of the things I say? Yes. But poetry is about truth and especially self-truth. So I continue to write and be true to the poems as I see them. Wherever they happen to be coming from, I’m not sure. But I won’t dilute them. Look where I’m coming from. Think back on the influence of the Catholic Church in the 50s. I had a typical Catholic education. At times I feel I have to undo that baggage. I enjoy unloading the baggage of the old Leaving Cert. Was it really an education or more an indoctrination into a system? I love the sense of freedom I get from the creative work of poetry. Poetry liberates me and sets me free. I am satirical in a number of poems, as you mentioned, and that satire grows out of my love for freedom.
Marie: ‘The Snowwoman’ from ‘Snowfire’ certainly makes her presence felt. Is the Snowwoman a metaphor for the poet or the muse for inspiration?
Noel: I suppose it’s the muse for inspiration. I love the Greek idea of the nine beautiful women, the nine muses and their power. The ‘Snowwoman’ is a powerful image and that image threatens the male in this particular poem. The poem is about the inability of a local community to deal with something new, something creatively new, a new form of art. The poem is particularly harsh on the young male ego who is locked in a mindset and when confronted with something new can only respond by attempting to rape. When the snow arrives everyone likes to get out and make a Snowman. The poem is saying what’s wrong with a Snowwoman? Somewhere lurking in the background of this poem is the viciousness of modern Ireland and our late night drinking orgies.
Marie: In ‘Old Priory’ the final poem in your collection, ‘Opposite Walls’, you refer to ‘old time – new time’. Much of the Ireland depicted in your early poetry has gone. Do you mourn that Ireland’s passing?
Noel: There is always a danger of becoming nostalgic and sentimental about the past. Good poetry is never sentimental and I hope I stay clear of that temptation. But change often hurts and in particular in Ireland today, the rapidity of change has greatly accelerated. Take for example an experience I had driving to school one morning. I passed the crossroads in the morning but on returning in the evening the crossroads had disappeared. They were building the New Bypass and had taken away the crossroads in lorries in a few hours. Now that’s the sort of change that hurts. It happens too quickly. Our souls can’t take it. That sudden change moved me to write, ‘The New Bypass’, a poem from ‘Curse of The Birds’ collection. You see change is inevitable and has always been part of life. Goldsmith wrote about change as he saw it in the 18th century. But today change is attacking us in an almost too sudden and too inhuman a way. I feel many people in Ireland today, have not the inner resources to keep up with the speed of change and they find themselves lost and are desperately trying to save their souls in an Ireland that is far too secular and a country that has lost sight of the sacral.
Marie: Do you think people will realise what they’ve lost and long for the past?
Noel: We are at an interim stage. I feel a sense of waiting. It can’t stay like this. In an ageing Christianity much challenged by the secular, we appear to be waiting for renewal or a new direction. It all reminds me of the time when England was about to become Christian and the signal was given when a sparrow flew in one door and out another. I have just completed a poem on that subject matter entitled, ‘Interim (after Bede)’ and it will appear in my next collection, ‘The Funeral Game’. So are we waiting for another sparrow? The secular on its own will never survive. The Arts can help us a good poem or a painting can save our soul.
Marie: Your poem, ‘The Undercurrent’ is a poem about writing a poem. Is there pain in creating and is there joy?
Noel: There is pain and the more deeply you think about writing poetry the more you realise so much of living has to go into the writing. Writing is a discipline. You need to be at it all the time if you are serious. Then there is the pain of having to give up the recreations most people engage in. It can be a type of limbo, ‘trapped between God and man’. And at times you feel you are out there on your own. But there is no place for self-pity. That will lead nowhere. And also there is the joy when inspiration strikes. It’s like seeing a cluster of stars for the first time. The stars are so bright and demanding they won’t go away and you go to work on this constellation, shaping its light and music and when its finished, the poem has an independence of its own. The poem can live without you. It can exist in Gowna or far out to sea, ‘with the whale music’.
Marie: How long do you spend paring a poem?
Noel: Some can be written straight off – they come as dreams. Most poems I work with for one or two months. I spent a summer working on the poem, ‘Hymn For A Foggy Day’ and the rest of the summer cutting grass.
Marie: ‘Curse of the Birds’ is an enigmatic title. With a strong sense of the mysterious, there seems to be a new departure in this collection. Was this a natural evolution of your work?
Noel: Well, I started with ‘Opposite Walls’ it was generally straightforward naturalistic writing. It was a collection about conflict. Conflict within oneself, social conflict, all the opposites come to play like the title poem about World War 1 and 1916 Rebellion. You can only write so much in that Manichean mould. As I wrote and read and developed my thoughts, I began to realise that a scientific rational approach has limitations. There is more to life than maths and science and rational thought. We don’t just live in the head. We belong elsewhere. We are part of a larger plan, a greater cosmos. And that development of thought, brought me to: ‘Curse of The Birds’. I suppose, ‘Curse of The Birds, is a leap into the darkness of the night, a way of looking at our dreams, a journey through the subconscious, another way of looking at the magical potential of poetry. Yeats explored magic and wrote about it. William Blake, I believe lived most the time in the unconscious and look at the brilliance of his etchings and poetry. This is the way I moved onto the world of ‘Curse of The Birds’. But real life family tragedy can also lead you along this pathway.
Marie: As you say, writers get in touch with their own subconscious, but what about the collective subconscious?
Noel: The Jungian idea fascinates me. And it is food for thought. I keep a dream book beside the bed and I record my dreams. Sometimes I work them into poems. I particularly enjoy enigmatic dreams with birds and animals. They are energising. They are the archetypal dreams and the stuff of good poetry and writing. I still have a long journey to travel in this territory and much more to explore. I read much of the work of Marie Louise Von Franz and I recommend her books to all writers.
Marie: You teach full-time. Does that leave you with the creative energy to write every day?
Noel: I write every day. When I return from school I start writing/reading at 6.00pm and work most nights until 10.30pm. Teaching is not a burden. There is plenty of scope for creativity in the classroom. I teach Creative Writing at St. Clare’s College and I write and direct plays for the college. However, in my new role as Deputy Principal, there is less scope for creativity.
Marie: If a student came to you and said he/she wanted to be a poet, what advice would you give?
Noel: Encourage them get them involved in the Windows Project. As you know, I work with Heather Brett in promoting new and emerging writers through Windows Publications. Encourage them to read. You must read if you intend to write. On an average, five or six young writers make contact every year. Some persist. Many give up.
Marie: One final question, Noel. You won the P.J. O’Connor RTE1 2001 Drama Award or your play, ‘Broken Cups’. What are the similarities and the differences between writing a play and a poem?
Noel: Terribly different. The approach has to be different. You have to warm into a play. You hear the dialogue between the characters. It is much more complex but very rewarding. The difficulty lies with the telling of the story. That must happen in dialogue. Using a narrator is a lazy way out and seldom successful. It is sociable. It will involve actors, directors, you get to meet more people. It has a sense of business about it and a great sense of the occasion: The Opening Night. Having said all that many people say my plays are full of poetry.
Marie: Thank you, Noel for your inspirational response and for your time. I have found this a most stimulating experience. May you continue to grow and develop as an artist. May you continue to challenge and inspire. We can look forward to your fourth collection, ‘The Funeral Game’ to be launched on 29th April 2004.