First Impressions of Ireland

Cab drivers always want to know when I'm going home.
They're always surprised to hear my answer.

The cab driver who took me to DCU (where I was to stay) was an elderly man, with big light eyes and a silly smile. And when I told him I studied poetry, he gave me a short poem that he wrote a bit ago. It was only one stanza long, and simple in rhyme but so so strong with imagery of friends slowly fading away. He blushed slightly as he recited it, and then demanded I read him one of mine. I did, but only half of one of my sonnets. He looked in the mirror expectantly, waiting for me to finish. I'm not sure why I stopped.

But as I learned that day, wandering through Dublin's zoo-like streets, this country is full of poetry and poetics. The Gaelic language itself is poetic. See, I'm starting to think poetry and poetic-ness (word? hmm..) is more of a view on the world than something you can just study or appreciate (meaning look at from a distance). It just exists or it doesn't. But the thing is, I think it has the possiblity to exist for everyone, if they were willing to change the way they see the world. Things like struggle, poverty, civil war, religious oppression, religions fundamentalism, suffering, heartbreak, death; these are the things that make good poetry. They make a sad sad life, but beautiful art.

But why? During my Bristol interview, I was asked if it was true that the only good poetry out there has some image of death in it. Of course, I laughed because I sincerely hope not. But now that I think of it, it does involve death of some kind. Death of innocence, death of love, infatution, in a change there is always dying. It's a change of emotion, of world view. Caused by a cathartic tragedy of some kind. And what seems so great about the irish culture (from my very limited exposure to it thus far) is that they not only have a strong tradition of struggle, but they are proud of it, they define themselves by it. And out of that struggle for identity, independence and words is birthed a mastery of literary tradition.

Maybe I'm just saying this because I have an infatuation with James Joyce (I read Ulysses way back in High School, and will proudly admit that I didn't understand much of it.... it reminds me of that introductory bit in Kerouac's "Lonesome Traveler" (I believe) where he says that his Aunt wanted him to define what a writer was, and he said that it was someone who talked a lot about things like James Joyce's Ulysses, but when asked to further expound on the details of the work, quickly changed the subject.) But there's got to be a reason why whenever I traveled through all the other countries of the world, whenever I mentioned Ireland people quickly added "of course."

My cab driver recited poetry to me in the first 5 minutes of landing in this place.
I think I'm going to like it here very much.