Dancing alone

This week: Inniskeen Road: July Evening by Patrick Kavanagh

I WAS in Amsterdam a few weeks before Christmas just gone, when a sudden snow blizzard brought the city to its knees. The canals froze, the trams stopped, the airport closed. Modern European city or not, everything came to a shuddering halt. White silence. Well, almost.

There remained the swish of tyres and the tinkle of handlebar bells. Regardless of the tricky street conditions and the bitter, biting cold, there they were, the natives and locals, pedalling away good-o, on their high nelly bicycles. Not a bother on them. Like mono-rail ghosts whizzing past. Ones, twos and threes.

It reminded me of a Sunday morning in the Connemara Gaelteacht, fado fado, when on our way walking down to ten mass, we were passed on the road by dozens of black bikes, piloted by men and women from the hills around the village, making their weekly pilgrimage.

Thing of the past, isn’t it, now. Men and women on the two wheels. In all weathers. And not a vitamin drink or thread of gaudy lycra in sight! Ah when men were men and women were glad. The folk that would have pedalled for miles to a match or a dance. Like the dance mentioned next, in Billy Brennan’s barn.

Inniskeen Road: July Evening by Patrick Kavanagh was a watershed moment in the poet’s writing career. Written in 1936, it marked the first time Kavanagh had the confidence to write in his own style, about his own world, and create what he saw, straight from his inners, and steer away from the constricted construction of work composed in an expected format for an expectant reader.

And here, he discovers himself. In it, we can recognise the gift he had for recreating what he was, and where he was from. Although the irony is, that in this piece he questions or doubts exactly what he is, and where does he belong? The whole community seems to be cycling to a dance tonight, bar himself. The poet feels isolated as the world wheels by.

He is part of this world, yet, as often with a writer, detached from it. He recognises this world and is somehow comfortable and uncomfortable in it, at the same time. (Something John B Keane often spoke of, as he typed away, watching from his upper window, the regular folk of Listowel, going about their business on the streets below.)

So, whilst the first 8 lines of this poem cement for us that rural scene of anticipation and excitement and delight, the final 6 lines drive home his feelings of exclusion, anger and isolation. There’s a dance on tonight, but he won’t be there. He will be dancing alone. Hence the mention of ‘Alexander Selkirk’, the real life individual who became the inspiration for that tale of Robinson Crusoe. Abject, utter, mind-warping detachment and loneliness. A visually awesome poem, it captures and holds wonderfully for us a time past, but let us not forget that it is also, splendidly sad.

The bicycles go by in twos and threes - There’s a dance in Billy Brennan’s barn tonight, And there’s the half-talk code of mysteries And the wink-and-elbow language of delight. Half-past eight and there is not a spot Upon a mile of road, no shadow thrown That might turn out a man or woman, not A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.

I have what every poet hates in spite

Of all the solemn talk of contemplation.

Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight

Of being king and government and nation. A road, a mile of kingdom. I am king

Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.

Fógra: Dedicated to two late, great neighbours of mine. Tim and Lil Counihan. Back in the day they would cycle from Enniscorthy to Thurles to watch Cork in the Munster Hurling Final. And back home on the Monday. 160 miles of bad road. No 20-speed Trek or Giant required. When men were men.

John J Kelly is a multiple award-winning poet from Enniscorthy. He is the co-founder of the Anthony Cronin Poetry Award with the Wexford Literary Festival and co-ordinator of poetry workshops for schools locally.

Each week, John’s column will deal mainly with novels, plays and poems from both the Leaving Certificate syllabus and Junior Certificate syllabus. kellyjj02@gmail.com