Hartnett, Michael

Ireland, (1941–1999)

Pigkilling

  1. Like a knife cutting a knife
  2. his last plea for life
  3. echoes joyfully in Camas.
  4. An egg floats
  5. like a navel
  6. in the pickling-barrel;
  7. before he sinks,
  8. his smiling head
  9. sees a delicate girl
  10. up to her elbows
  11. in a tub of blood
  12. while the avalanche
  13. of his offal steams
  14. among the snapping dogs
  15. and mud
  16. and porksteaks
  17. coil in basins
  18. like bright snakes
  19. and buckets of boiling water hiss
  20. to soften his bristles
  21. for the blade.
  22. I kick his golden bladder
  23. in the air.
  24. It lands like a moon
  25. among the damsons.
  26. Like a knife cutting a knife
  27. his last plea for life
  28. echoes joyfully in Camas.

Poet’s Note:
Camas: a townland five miles south of Newcastle West in County Limerick where I spent most of my childhood.

 Michael Hartnett. Collected Poems. Oldcastle: The Gallery Press (2001).

A Farewell to English
(excerpt)

  1. This road is not new.
  2. I am not a maker of new things.
  3. I cannot hew
  4. out of the vacuum-cleaner minds
  5. the sense of serving dead kings.
  6.  
  7. I am nothing new.
  8. I am not a lonely mouth
  9. trying to chew
  10. a niche for culture
  11. in the clergy-cluttered south.
  12.  
  13. But I will not see
  14. great men go down
  15. who walked in rags
  16. from town to town
  17. finding English a necessary sin,
  18. the perfect language to sell pigs in.
  19.  
  20. I have made my choice
  21. and leave with little weeping.
  22. I have come with meagre voice
  23. to court the language of my people.

Editor’s Note:

The poem “A Farewell to English” (1975) marked a breakaway, as its title implies, from Hartnett’s use of the English language in his poetry. After that, he wrote almost exclusively in Gaelic, often publishing under his Gaelic name, Micheál Ó hAirtnéide, until he eased back into using English in 1985.

 Michael Hartnett. A farewell to English, and other poems. Dublin: Gallery Books (1975).

About the Poet:

Michael Hartnett, Ireland, (1941–1999) was a poet, menial laborer and educator. He wrote in both English and Irish and was one of the most significant voices in late 20th-century Irish writing and has been called “Munster’s de facto poet laureate”.

Hartnett spent much of his life writing poetry full-time, working not only on his own poems but on groundbreaking translations of the classical poets of the Irish language. He leaves behind a legacy of poetry in Irish and English and a significant body of translation which continue to influence contemporary Irish poetry running counter to the dominant poetic strictures of the late 20th century. [DES-11/19]