his poetry to that of such masters as W.H. Auden, the poet and classical
scholar Louis MacNeice, and Samuel Beckett. A voluntary exile from his native
Belfast, Mahon explores themes of isolation, loneliness, and alienation in his
poetry. After studying French at Trinity College, Dublin, Mahon spent a year in
France at the Sorbonne; he subsequently lived and worked in cities across the
United States and Canada before moving to London to become a journalist. His
sixth collection, The Snow Party (1975) offers a pensive look at the lives of
outcasts. In “A Refusal to Mourn,” Mahon evokes through the use of minute detail
the lonely existence of an old man who lives his life on the periphery of society.
The most celebrated piece in The Snow Party, “A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford,”
animates the world of a huge cluster of mushrooms locked in an abandoned
country hotel shed. With detached and unsentimental language Mahon symbolizes
what Blake Morrison in the Times Literary Supplement called “past human
aspirations … striving to be remembered and redeemed.”
Mahon’s work throughout the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s was widely praised for the
intensity and grimness of its gaze. Focusing on the artist’s alienation from society,
Mahon continually seemed to question the role of art in a corrupt and modern
world. The Hunt by Night (1982), published three years after the release of
Mahon’s first volume of collected works, focuses in part on the dark, uncivilized
side of human nature. The title poem, inspired by 15th-century Florentine artist
Paolo Uccello’s painting of the same name, emphasizes “the connection between
killing and living” in an “unembarrassedly clear-eyed context,” describing the
“vivid riot of men, dogs and horses” pictured on Uccello’s canvas, noted Neil
Corcoran in the Times Literary Supplement. Other poems in The Hunt by
Night depict humanity as insignificant in the face of time and history, powerless
against the inevitable forces and experiences that shape human life. Mahon’s series
of epistolary verse-novels, The Hudson Letter (1995) and its follow-up The Yellow
Book (1997), gather the detritus of a decadent contemporary culture and submit it
to the formal pressures of art. Meditations on the often-conflicting realms of nature
and art, the books are firmly in the tradition of Louis MacNeice’s
masterpieces Autumn Journal and Autumn Sequel.
Some critics have faulted Mahon for his tightly controlled poetry, suggesting that
his adherence to a highly structured verse form diminishes the power of his words.
Morrison proposed that Mahon, at times, has sacrificed “vigour” for the
achievement “of greater technical competence.” Despite this, the poet’s keen eye
for detail and honest approach to his subjects have earned him a reputation as a
significant figure in 20th-century English literature. As Brian Donnelly asserted,
“Mahon is restoring to English poetry qualities which are rare at the present
time—conversational narrative combined with wit, intelligence and humour
capable of realising a deep seriousness.” Mahon offered his own ironic thoughts on
the merits of a poet in “The Sea in Winter,” an excerpt of which appeared in
the Observer: “I ... know nothing / Scribbling on the off-chance, / Darkening the
white page, / Cultivating my ignorance.”
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