President gives voice to his poetry with new recordings
President Michael D Higgins has taken time out of his schedule to record “a significant number of his poems” for an album to be released next year.
“Work remains in progress on the project, with the President having completed recordings of a significant number of his poems, taken from across his existing published collections,” said a spokesman for the head of state in response to questions from the Sunday Independent.
The recordings, which are now complete and are expected to be released in the next 12 months by Irish record label Claddagh, were carried out in Áras an Uachtaráin late last year.
“The origins of the project lie in a long-standing friendship which the President had with the late Claddagh Records co-founder Garech Browne, who passed away in 2018,” said a spokesperson.
“The President spoke at Brown’s funeral where he urged the revived Claddagh label to preserve Claddagh’s existing catalogue and grow it with the next generation of musicians.”
President Higgins later contributed to an album of Patrick Kavanagh’s poetry, along with such luminaries as Bono, Jessie Buckley, Liam Neeson and others.
He was invited to record an album of his own work, which spans decades and reflects his own life, from growing up in poverty in Co Clare to his humanitarian concerns.
Although other heads of state, from Jimmy Carter to Vaclav Havel, have published poetry, Higgins’s decision to record his work is probably a presidential first.
He published his first collection, The Betrayal, in 1990 and has been publishing poetry periodically since, including Selected Poems in 2011.
Writing in Poetry Ireland, fellow poet Michael McCarthy said: “Higgins’s popularity and his life in poetry are intimately bound together, animated at the very core of his being by that sense of ‘emotional honesty’ which in turn impels him towards stylistic candour, a simple, deep resolution to say difficult things in clear language’ as the poet Brendan Kennelly wrote of him 20 years ago.”
McCarthy added it is “foolish” to try to distinguish between the private agony of poems and the public advocacy of Irish politics.
“In Ireland, public feeling is honoured in poetry, in the same way that a sense of irony is honoured in the British poetic world,” he added. “Higgins’s work is always a reflection upon the world, but a reflection combined with a call to action.”
Higgins’s spokesman said: “The President has greatly enjoyed the process to date and it is expected that Claddagh Records will formally announce details of the project when completed.”
Claddagh Records has a licensing deal with Universal Music and it is said to be delighted with the presidential collaboration, which will lead to worldwide distribution of the President’s poetry.