WRITER PROFILE

Theo Dorgan interviews the grand old man of Irish poetry, John Montague. He talks of how he was born in New York in 1929 and sent at the age of four to live with aunts in County Tyrone.

All through his life and in his work, he says he was very affected by a strong sense of dislocation and the feeling that he had lost his family at such a young age. "I had a very strong sense from the beginning that I had come from the outer world, I had been dropped back in a time capsule into a County Tyrone of the 19th Century".

Montague went on to live in Paris, California and, latterly, West Cork. During his time in America, he was very influenced by writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Robert Bly. "I felt happy in the States, I remember being at the first reading of Ginsberg's 'Howl' which was very exciting".

Montague's work examines personal experience, family and community while demystifying the romantic myths of the past and some of his best known work is his elegiac love poetry.

In this candid interview, he reveals what has driven him all these years and how he still has pre-occupations that he is trying to work out in his poetry, "with all my circles I fail to return".

His major publications include The Rough Field (1972), a panoramic work which contemplates Ulster's colonial history and the disintegration of life there from the perspective of an Ulster nationalist and Catholic, The Great Cloak (1978) and Mount Eagle (1988).

In 1998 he became the first Ireland Professor of Poetry. The interview takes place on the publication of 'Smashing the Piano' (1999) his first since 'Collected Poems' (1995).


Biographical Details

John Montague (1929 - ) poet. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, where his Catholic father had fled to exile after the Civil War, and spent his childhood on the family home near Garvaghey, County Tyrone.

Educated at St Patrick's, Armagh, University College Dublin (UCD) and Yale, between 1954 and 1972 he travelled in the US, lecturing and organising poetry workshops.

He also worked as a correspondent for The Irish Times in Paris from 1961-4 and lectured at University of Vincennes from 1969-70 before returning to Ireland.

Publications include: 'Poisoned Lands' (1961 and 1978), 'Death of a Chieftain' (1964), 'A Chosen Light' (1967), 'The Rough Field' (1972) and 'A Slow Dance' (1975).

Much of his work deals with exile and a nostalgic longing for home. 'The Great Cloak' (1978) is concerned with the breakdown of marriage and the fulfilment of a new union.

He edited 'The Faber Book of Irish Verse' (1974) and until 1988 was a senior lecturer in English in University College Cork (UCC).

He is a member of Aosdána.


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Running Time: 30mins
Year Made: 2000
Price: €20 - PAL (European), €30 - NTSC (US) plus P&P