HUTCHINSON, (William Patrick Henry) Pearse

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Nationality: Irish. Born: Glasgow, Scotland, 16 February 1927. Education; Christian Brothers School, Dublin; University College, Dublin; Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, 1952. Career: Translator, International Labor Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 1951–53; drama critic, Radio Eireann, 1957–61, and Telefis Eireann, 1968. Gregory Fellow, University of Leeds, 1971–73. Lived in Barcelona, 1954–57, 1961–67. Awards: Butler award, for Gaelic writing, 1969. Address: School of English, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, England.

Publications

Poetry

Tongue without Hands. Dublin, Dolmen Press, 1963.

Faoistin Bhacach (Imperfect Confession). Dublin, Clóchomhar, 1968.

Expansions. Dublin, Dolmen Press, 1969.

Watching the Morning Grow. Dublin, Gallery Press, 1973.

The Frost Is All Over. Dublin, Gallery Press, 1975.

Selected Poems. Dublin, Gallery Press, 1982.

Climbing the Light. Dublin, Gallery Press, 1985

Le Cead Na Gréine. Baile Atha Cliath, An Clóchamar Tta, 1989.

The Soul That Kissed the Body. Oldcastle, Gallery Press, 1990.

Barnsley Main Seam. Oldcastle, Gallery Books, 1995.

Other

Translator, Poems, by Josep Carner. Oxford, Dolphin, 1962.

Translator, Friend Songs: Medieval Love-Songs from Galaico-Portuguese. Dublin, New Writers Press, 1970.

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Critical Studies: By Gabriel Rosenstock, in Comhar (Baile Atha Cliath, Ireland), 44 (1), 1985; by Michael Davitt, in Innti, 11, 1988.

Pearse Hutchinson comments:

Themes: Growing up. Near madness. Near despair. The color bar. The horrors of puritanical Irish Catholicity. Xenophobia and Xenophilia. Travel (especially Spain). The built-in dangers (to truth) of all revolt. The difficulty, tenuous possibility, and utter necessity of love. Friendship. Social injustice. God. Pity.

Forms: Free verse and strictly rhyming metros.

Influences: Hard to say, but I suppose Auden, Cavafy, the seventeenth-century Gaelic poet Pierce Ferriter, and the contemporary Catalans Salvador Espriu (especially as to cadence) and Pere Quart.

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The Irish poet Pearse Hutchinson lived for many years in Spain, and his first published work consisted of verse translations from the work of the Catalan poet Josep Carner. The effect of his experiences abroad can be seen in his first two original collections of poems, Tongue without Hands and Expansions. His delight in Mediterranean color is shown in "Málaga":

   The scent of unseen jasmine on the warm night beach.
 
 
   The tram along the sea road all the way from town
   through its wide open sides drank unseen jasmine down.
   Living was nothing all those nights but that strong flower.

Equally lighthearted is the lyrical "Fireworks in Córdoba":

   Cocks and coins and golden lupins,
   parachutes and parasols and shawls,
   pamplinas, maltrantos, and glass lawyers,
   giant spermatozoa, dwarf giants,
   greengage palms, and flying goldfish …

Hutchinson often writes of political oppression and bad social conditions. In "Questions" he describes attempts to suppress the use of the Catalan language by imprisonment and violence: "Where one fine day, the gun smiles, and everyone rumours a thaw, /but next night, the gun kills, and all remember the law."

The poems Hutchinson has written on Irish life, both in city and country, are brisk, satiric, and ironic, as in "Men's Mission":

   Some Lenten evening sharp, at five to eight,
   pick a suburban road both long and straight
   and leading—which do not?—to a Catholic church:
   you'll see, whisked out through every creaking gate,
   men only, walking all at the same brisk rate.

"Fleadh Cheoil" (the name of a popular musical festival) is a lively account of a country town en fête:

   each other door in a mean twisting main street,
   flute-player, fiddler and penny-whistler
   concentrating on one sense only
   such a wild elegance of energy gay and sad
   few clouds of lust or vanity could form:
   the mind kept cool, the heart kept warm:
   therein the miracle, three days and nights
   so many dances played and so much drinking done,
   so many voices raised in singing but none
   in anger nor any fist in harm.

From the manufacturing centers of England and Scotland, exiles "in flashy ties and frumpish hats" return for a few days to hear "an ancient music." "Friday in a Branch Post-Office" tells of the weekly queue of septuagenarians waiting patiently for their meager pension and ends with the ironic comment "We don't need a statue of Cú Chulainn /in our Branch Post-Office." The reference reminds us of Yeats's tribute to the statue of the ancient Irish hero in the general post office in Dublin.

—Austin Clarke