A number of the late long poems, such as, for instance, the 1971 Tiresias, show the effects of studying these poets and their looser formal structures. He also published the intensely personal Mnemosyne Lay in Dust, which is a poem sequence detailing the fictional Maurice Devanes's nervous breakdown and subsequent recovery.Ĭlarke also came to admire the work of more avant-garde poets like Ezra Pound and Pablo Neruda, both of whom he wrote poems about. Many of the later poems are satires of the Irish church and state, while others are sensual celebrations of human sexuality, free of the guilt of the earlier poems. Although he continued to use the same Gaelic-derived techniques, this late poetry is markedly different from the earlier work. It seems likely that he also experienced some kind of personal crisis during this time and this had significant consequences for his later poetry.Ĭlarke returned to publishing poetry with the 1955 collection Ancient Lights, and was to continue writing and publishing prolifically for the remainder of his life.

He also worked as a journalist and had a weekly poetry programme on RTÉ radio. He was co-founder of the Lyric Theatre, Dublin and wrote a number of verse plays for them. There was, however, one significant difference unlike the older poet, Clarke was a Catholic, and themes of guilt and repentance run through this early work.īetween 19, Clarke published no new lyric or narrative poetry. Between this and the 1938 volume Night and Morning, Clarke published a number of collections, all of which, to one extent or another, can be seen as being written in the shadow of Yeats. It met with critical acclaim and, unusually for a first book of poetry, went to a second edition.

His first book, The Vengeance of Fionn, was a long narrative poem retelling an Ossianic legend. Describing his technique to Robert Frost, Clarke said 'I load myself down with chains and try to wriggle free.'Ĭlarke's early poetry clearly shows the influence of Yeats.

Clarke's main contribution to Irish poetry was the rigour with which he used technical means borrowed from classical Irish language poetry when writing in English.Įffectively, this meant writing English verse based not so much on metre as on complex patterns of assonance, consonance, and half rhyme. Austin Clarke (Irish: Aibhistín Ó Cléirigh ) ( – 19 March 1974), born in 83 Manor Street, Stoneybatter, Dublin, was one of the leading Irish poets of the generation after W.

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