Chapter 12 - Violence, Politics and the Poetry of the Troubles

Summary

This chapter re-examines the poetry of the early Troubles and addresses the limitations of what was, to a large extent, an atrocity-led literature, drawing on works such as Thomas Kinsella’s ‘Butcher’s Dozen’ and Seamus Deane’s ‘After Derry’ to reassess the role played by writers and critics at this time. Discussing both retrospective and contemporaneous interviews with authors, the chapter also addresses the ways in which writers such as Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Michael Longley responded to the new mandate which poetry had been given after the outbreak of the northern conflict, with the relentless media exposure of the Troubles often, but not always, eliciting evasive responses to the conditions engendered by the violence. Finally, it examines the fresh formal and linguistic strategies adopted by younger poets including Ciaran Carson, Paul Muldoon and Medbh McGuckian. By this time, writing the violence of the Troubles into poetry could make evasion a form of engagement which helped to preserve artistic autonomy.