Norman Derek Mahon (23 November 1941 – 1 October 2020) was an Irish poet. He was born in

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

, Northern Ireland but lived in a number of cities around the world. At his death it was noted that his, "influence in the Irish poetry community, literary world and society at large, and his legacy, is immense". President of Ireland Michael D Higgins said of Mahon; "he shared with his northern peers the capacity to link the classical and the contemporary but he brought also an edge that was unsparing of cruelty and wickedness."

Biography

Derek Mahon was born on 23 November 1941 as the only child of Ulster Protestant working-class parents. His father and grandfather worked at

Harland and Wolff Harland & Wolff Holdings plc is a British shipbuilding and Metal fabrication, fabrication company headquartered in London with sites in Belfast, Arnish yard, Arnish, Appledore, Torridge, Appledore and Methil. It specialises in ship repair, ship ...

while his mother worked at a local flax mill. During his childhood, he claims he was something of a solitary dreamer, comfortable with his own company yet aware of the world around him. Interested in literature from an early age, he attended Skegoneill Primary School and then the

Royal Belfast Academical Institution The Royal Belfast Academical Institution is an independent grammar school in Belfast, Northern Ireland. With the support of Belfast's leading reformers and democrats, it opened its doors in 1814. Until 1849, when it was superseded by what today ...

, or "Inst". At Inst he encountered fellow students who shared his interest in literature and poetry. The school produced a magazine in which Mahon produced some of his early poems. According to the critic Hugh Haughton his early poems were highly fluent and extraordinary for a person so young. His parents could not see the point of poetry, but he set out to prove them wrong after he won his school's

Forrest Reid Forrest Reid (24 June 1875, Belfast, Ireland; 4 January 1947, Warrenpoint, County Down, Northern Ireland) was an Irish novelist, literary critic and translator. He was a leading pre-war novelist of boyhood and is still acclaimed as a noted Ulster ...

Memorial Prize for the poem 'The power that gives the water breath'. Mahon pursued third level studies at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

in French, English, and Philosophy and where he edited ''

Icarus In Greek mythology, Icarus (; , ) was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth of Crete. After Theseus, king of Athens and enemy of King Minos, escaped from the labyrinth, Minos suspected that Icarus and Daedalu ...

'', and formed many friendships with writers such as

Michael Longley Michael George Longley (27 July 1939 – 22 January 2025) was a Northern Irish poet. In his later years Longley observed: "It's a mystery where poems come from. If I knew where poems came from I would go there ... When I write a poem I am movi ...

, Eavan Boland and Brendan Kennelly. He started to mature as a poet. He left

Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, thr ...

in 1965 to take up studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. After leaving the Sorbonne in 1966 he worked his way through Canada and the United States. In 1968, while spending a year teaching English at Belfast High School, he published his first collection of poems ''Night Crossing''. He later taught in a school in Dublin and worked in London as a freelance journalist. He lived in

Kinsale Kinsale ( ; ) is a historic port and fishing town in County Cork, Ireland. Located approximately south of Cork (city), Cork City on the southeast coast near the Old Head of Kinsale, it sits at the mouth of the River Bandon, and has a populatio ...

, County Cork. On 23 March 2007, he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. He won the Poetry Now Award in 2006 for his collection, ''Harbour Lights'', and again in 2009 for his ''Life on Earth'' collection. At times expressing anti-establishment values, Mahon has described himself as, an 'aesthete' with a penchant 'for left-wingery ..to which, perhaps naively, I adhere.' His papers are held at

Emory University Emory University is a private university, private research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded in 1836 as Emory College by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory. Its main campu ...

. In March 2020, at the beginning of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

RTÉ News RTÉ News and Current Affairs (), also known simply as RTÉ News (''Nuacht RTÉ''), is the national news service provided by Irish public broadcaster (RTÉ). Its services include local, national, European and international news, investigative ...

ended its evening broadcast with Mahon reading his poem ''Everything Is Going to Be All Right''. On 1 October 2020, Mahon died in Cork after a short illness, aged 78. He is survived by his partner Sarah Iremonger and his three children, Rory, Katy, and Maisie. Mahon features on the Irish Leaving Certificate course with ten of his poems (Grandfather, Day Trip to Donegal, Ecclesiastes, After the Titanic, As It Should Be, A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford, Rathlin, The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush, Kinsale and Antarctic

Style

Thoroughly educated and with a keen understanding of literary tradition, Mahon came out of the tumult of Northern Ireland with a formal, moderate, even restrained poetic voice. In an era of

free verse Free verse is an open form of poetry which does not use a prescribed or regular meter or rhyme and tends to follow the rhythm of natural or irregular speech. Free verse encompasses a large range of poetic form, and the distinction between free ...

, Mahon often wrote in received forms, using a broadly applied version of

iambic pentameter Iambic pentameter ( ) is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in each line. Meter is measured in small groups of syllables called feet. "Iambi ...

that, metrically, resembles the "sprung foot" verse of

Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Society of Jesus, Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame places him among the leading English poets. His Prosody (linguistics), prosody – notably his concept of sprung ...

. Some poems rhyme. Even the Irish landscape itself is never all that far from the classical tradition, as in his poem "Achill": :

Croagh Patrick Croagh Patrick (), nicknamed 'the Reek', is a mountain with a height of and an important site of pilgrimage in County Mayo, Ireland. The mountain has a pyramid-shaped peak and overlooks Clew Bay, rising above the village of Murrisk, several ...

towers like

Naxos Naxos (; , ) is a Greek island belonging to the Cyclades island group. It is the largest island in the group. It was an important centre during the Bronze Age Cycladic Culture and in the Ancient Greek Archaic Period. The island is famous as ...

over the water ::And I think of my daughter at work on her difficult art :And wish she were with me now between thrush and plover, ::Wild thyme and sea-thrift, to lift the weight from my heart. He has also explored the genre of ekphrasis: the poetic reinterpretation of visual art. In that respect, he was interested in 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art.

Publications

Poetry: Main Collections

* 1968: ''Night-Crossing'', Oxford University Press * 1972: ''Lives'', Oxford University Press * 1975: ''The Snow Party'', Oxford University Press * 1982: ''The Hunt By Night'', Oxford University Press * 1995: ''The Hudson Letter'', Gallery Press; Wake Forest University Press, 1996 * 1997: ''The Yellow Book'', Gallery Press; Wake Forest University Press, 1998 * 2005: ''Harbour Lights'', Gallery Press (winner of the 2006 Irish Times Poetry Now Award) * 2008: ''Life on Earth'', Gallery Press (winner of the 2009 Irish Times Poetry Now Award) * 2010: ''An Autumn Wind.'', Gallery Press * 2018: ''Against the Clock'', Gallery Press * 2020: ''Washing Up'', Gallery Press

Limited Editions and Booklets (Poetry)

* 1965: ''Twelve Poems'', Festival Publications, Belfast * 1970: ''Ecclesiastes'', Phoenix Pamphlet Poets * 1970: ''Beyond Howth Head'', Dolmen Press * 1977: ''In Their Element'', Arts Council of Northern Ireland * 1979: ''The Sea in Winter'', Gallery Press * 1981: ''Courtyards in Delft'', Gallery Press * 1984: ''A Kensington Notebook'', Anvil Press * 1985: ''Antarctica'', Gallery Press * 1992: ''The Yaddo Letter'', Gallery Press * 1999: ''Roman Script'', Gallery Press * 2001: ''Resistance Days'', Gallery Press * 2007: ''Somewhere the Wave'', Gallery Press

Translations / Versions / Editions

* 1982: ''The Chimeras'' (a version of '' Les Chimères'', by Nerval), Gallery Press * 1985: ''High Time'' (a version of

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, ; ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world liter ...

's ''A School for Husbands''), Gallery Press * 1986: ''The School for Wives (after Molière)'', Gallery Press * 1988: ''The Selected Poems of Philippe Jaccottet'', Viking Press * 1996: ''The Bacchae'' of

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

, and Racine's ''Phaedra'', Gallery Press * 1998: ''Words in the Air'' Gallery Press * 2001: ''The Seaside Cemetery (a version of 'Le Cimetiere marin' by Paul Valery'', Gallery Press * 2002: ''Birds'' (a version of ''Oiseaux,'' by Saint-John Perse), Gallery Press * 2004: ''

Cyrano de Bergerac Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( , ; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist. A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th ce ...

.'' (A version of the play by Edmond Rostand), Gallery Press * 2005: ''Oedipus'' (A conflation of

Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...

Oedipus Rex ''Oedipus Rex'', also known by its Greek title, ''Oedipus Tyrannus'' (, ), or ''Oedipus the King'', is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles. While some scholars have argued that the play was first performed , this is highly uncertain. Originally, to ...

and

Oedipus at Colonus ''Oedipus at Colonus'' (also ''Oedipus Coloneus''; , ''Oidipous epi Kolōnō'') is the second of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles. It was written shortly before Sophocles's death in 406 BC and produced by his grandson ...

), Gallery Press * 2006: ''Adaptations'' (A collection of versions, rather than translations proper, from poets such as Pasolini,

Juvenal Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ; 55–128), was a Roman poet. He is the author of the '' Satires'', a collection of satirical poems. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, but references in his works to people f ...

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

Paul Valéry Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, m ...

, Baudelaire, Rilke and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill), Gallery Press * 2011: ''Raw Material'', Gallery Press * 2013: ''Theatre'', Gallery Press * 2013: ''Echo's Grove: Collected Translations'', Gallery Press * 2023: ''The Adaptations (1975-2020)'', Gallery Press

Poetry: Selected Editions

* 1979: ''Poems 1962–1978'', Oxford University Press * 1991: ''Selected Poems'', Viking Books/ Gallery Press; Paperback: Penguin (1993) * 1999: ''Collected Poems'', Gallery Press * 2011: ''New Collected Poems'', Gallery Press * 2016: ''New Selected Poems'',

Faber & Faber Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...

; Gallery Press * 2021: ''The Poems (1961-2020)'', Gallery Press

Prose

* 1996: ''Journalism: Selected Prose, 1970-1995'' Ed. Terence Brown, Gallery Press * 2012: ''Selected Prose'', Gallery Press * 2017: ''The Rain Bridge'' (for children), Gallery Press * 2017: ''Olympia and the Internet'', Gallery Press * 2023: ''The Prose (1971-2020)'', Gallery Press

As Editor

* 2001: ''Jonathan Swift - Poems selected by Derek Mahon'',

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...

Critical studies and reviews of Mahon's work

* Enniss, Stephen (2014) ''After the Titanic: A Life of Derek Mahon'', Gill & Macmillan * Haughton, Hugh (2007) ''The Poetry of Derek Mahon'', Oxford University Press * Jarniewicz, Jerzy (2013) ''Ekphrasis in the Poetry of Derek Mahon'', NWP Piotrkow, * Review of ''Echo's grove''. * ''Autumn Skies: Writers on Poems by Derek Mahon'', Gallery Press

Honours

* 1965 – Eric Gregory Award for poetry * 1989 – Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize * 1990 –

Lannan Literary Awards The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...

for Poetry * 1992 – The Irish Times-Aer Lingus Poetry Prize * 1995 – Honorary doctorate

. * 2001 – Honorary doctorate

NUI Galway The University of Galway () is a public research university located in the city of Galway, Ireland. The university was founded in 1845 as "Queen's College, Galway". It was known as "University College, Galway" (UCG) () from 1908 to 1997 and as ...

– for work reflecting the enduring aesthetic of achievement in contemporary Irish writing. * 2007 – David Cohen Prize for Literature – in recognition of his 'lifetime's achievement' * Member, Aosdána * Irish Academy of Letters Award *

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

* 2020 – Irish Times Poetry Now award

References

External links

*
Derek Mahon's page at Wake Forest University Press

Griffin Poetry Prize biography

Griffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clip
*
Achill
from poets.org. *

from The Poem. *

by Rajeev S. Patke.
Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Emory University
Derek Mahon papers, 1948–2018Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Emory University
Derek Mahon collection, 1985–1988, 1991, 2000
*Letters and postcards from Derek Mahon to Louis Asekoff from 1963 to 1988
Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Emory University
Letters to Louis Asekoff, 1963–1988
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mahon, Derek 1941 births 2020 deaths Aosdána members David Cohen Prize recipients French–English translators Writers from Belfast Male poets from Northern Ireland University of Paris alumni Alumni of Trinity College Dublin 20th-century writers from Northern Ireland 20th-century poets from Northern Ireland 21st-century British poets 21st-century British male writers 20th-century Irish translators 21st-century translators Male writers from Northern Ireland 20th-century British male writers People from Kinsale Translators of Gérard de Nerval