The
Love Poetry of Judas Iscariot
Poems
by Mick Corrigan
Dionysia
Press Ltd, 2021
59
pages - £ 15.50
The prize painting in the National Gallery of Ireland
is, without any doubt, Caravaggio’s depiction of The Taking of Christ in
which the painter presents us with the iconic image of Judas just as he is
betraying Christ with the sign of a kiss, as previously arranged with the Roman
legionaries who are depicted in the costumes of Caravaggio’s own time. In fact,
Caravaggio even paints himself into the great work bearing a lantern so that he
might better see the image of Christ. I am always reminded of the Rolling
Stones song on Exile of Main Street in which Jagger sings ‘don’t talk to
me about Jesus, I just want to see his face!’ And of course, Oscar Wilde’s
unforgettable lines taken from The Ballad of Reading Goal:
Yet
each man kills the thing he loves,
By
each let this be heard,
Some
do it with a bitter look,
Some
with a flattering word,
The
coward does it with a kiss,
The
brave man with a sword!
So, betrayal in art, and particularly embodied in the
biblical figure of Judas, is nothing new. In fact, when I first saw some of
Michael Corrigan’s Judas poems, which was around this time two years ago when I
was co- editing the April edition of Live Encounters Poetry and Writing with
Mark Ulyseas, I was immediately reminded of
Brendan Kennelly’s Book of Judas ( Bloodaxe Books , 1991) . So, I
was intrigued. It was high time, a twenty year period separates the publication
of these books, that a poet from this most treacherous of isles penned a few
poems treating the monumental and time-honoured theme of betrayal. James Joyce,
to conclude this introductory preamble, never stopped harping on about how
Irish history was full of tales of treachery, A Portrait of a Young Man as
an Artist ( 1916) starts off with the parents of the young man in question
arguing over the betrayal of Charles Stewart Parnell and continuing on the
political scene, being a Cork man, how could I not miss the opportunity to
bring up the assassination of Michael Collins…! But enough, if I keep
enumerating all the treacherous low down dirty deeds that have been committed
down through the annals of time and have been remembered by writers, historians
and artists, I’ll never get started on this review. Oh, but a final word, and
then I swear I’ll begin, it is interesting to note that both Michael Corrigan’s
book and Brendan Kennelly’s were both published in the UK... Enough!
The title poem of the book greets the reader on the
first page, here is the final verse.
On
the night I sold you to the wolves of respectability,
in
Gethsemane where sleeping olives dreamed of rain,
I
pressed my face to the loamy earth and beneath a moon too cold
to
touch,
I
believe I heard her mournful sigh;
“nothing
is new, nothing is new,
I
have seen it all before.”
The poet, imagining himself being Judas, once again
makes the figure contemporaneous and it is something he does quite successfully
too with other Biblical figures in the collection, such as Mary from
Magdala – this last poem offers a really poignant insight into the Bible’s
most notorious woman , made famous by washing the feet of Jesus with
her hair and who was rumoured by some to be the sexual partner of the man from
Nazareth – he the man God, the lover of a prostitute! Say what you like, but by
God that book ( the Bible) is a cracker. No wonder it’s a bestseller!
In
Ephesus her end of days,
nights
shallow with shortening breath,
a
mill beneath the small bare room,
millstones
grinding, dark sea lapping at her door.
I also love the fact that in the first verse the poet informs
the reader of Mary’s wealthy origins, as an Irishman Corrigan understands people’s
innate prejudices; people are far more likely to forgive someone coming from a
‘good’ home, in other words a family of wealth, rather then they would forgive
someone coming from a poor background. This is Max Weber, and the inherent
correlation between wealth and respectability, perversely likened in the west
to spirituality. This idea of respectability is signaled very early on in the
very first poem -see again above, and which underscores the whole collection The Love
Poetry of Judas Iscariot and how such a notion, being respectable, can make traitors or Judases, of us all. It is in this constantly recurring idea that the
poet mines, and to wonderful effect.
She
sang sea music, fluent in the rise and fall,
knew
deep, dark places that calved the biggest waves.
From
the flat roof of a prosperous house in Magdala, Galillee,
watched
the purple gather of every winter storm
chase
small boats to harbour before an angry swell.
I don’t know how historically accurate any of the
above is, nor do I particularly care. Poets were never much known or
appreciated for their literalness, at least in days of yore, metaphor being so
much more their quarry. It is only recently, I believe, that poets actually
have to literally embody their work in both life and deed, literally breathing
words of blessed scripture. Good lord, good luck to them!
Another particular feature of Mister Corrigan’s
second, I believe, superlative collection is the irreverent and humorous nature
of some of the poems. At times, I was reminded of another stalwart in the
recent Irish literary canon and that is Paul Durcan. Mick , being
but a few years older than myself, is of that generation that grew up during
the depression in the eighties in the Republic of Ireland and so his humour is
deeply informed by the historical context of having experienced both busts and
booms, and in that particular order. This is something that you simply cannot
imitate. The French have the term terroir which is particular to their
culture and they use it principally when attempting to describe the particular
flavour and taste of a certain cheese or wine that is principally due to the
very particular weather and soil conditions, say, of a specific product coming
from a very particular place in France. Champagne is without a doubt the
most famous example of this cultural phenomenon as no other sparkling wine can
use the term Champagne, if it does not come from this specific area in France, where the famous drink is produced as the French feel other sparkling drinks,
such as prosecco, come from very different terroirs with different soil
and climates, and so cannot possibly be described using the same term. So, if I
were to refer to the particular terroir that Corrigan comes from, it would be this deeply historical aspect and it is just another feature that informs the
aesthetic of the poet’s work, like the shells in the soil that inform that old
white wine that comes from Bordeaux and whose name simply escapes me now…
When
the dark waters of sleep
close
across my resting butch face
and
I become a fat Ophelia
floating
down the weedy slope
of
memory, hope and duck billed platitudes,
back
to childhood, back to faith,
where
a diarrhoea fountain
of
bare-knuckled nationalism
provides
us with its dullard troops
each
one trained to shit on sight,
the
brightest and best promoted to teach
in
the places that smelled of failure and feet.
Now, there are many so called poets who have been
praised for their satirical nature, it seems to me, and many is the time that I
have read their work and wondered what all the fuss was about. Poetic trends,
like any, come and go – thank God! But verse such as the above would certainly
qualify as satirical verse of the very highest order, to my mind. God knows every
particular cuntry ( not a typo!) has its own very specifically exasperating
strains, see terroir, and dear old Ireland is not the exception. I
remember being at an exhibition in one of the older more established art
galleries in Dublin and a very famous photographer, who had made his career
abroad, made the comment how in the Republic we made a point of embracing
mediocrity and it is this particular phenomenon, again, that I think Mr
Corrigan is particularly good at eking out. Begrudgery being another!
when
masters came to class tooled up
and
the biggest looters wore the best suits,
I mean every society has its own particular issues,
I’ve lived long enough in France to spot its and having lived with an Italian
for over twenty years, I am also able to spot that country's, or rather its
peoples, particular peculiarities. But it seems to me that what Mr. Corrigan
is particularly good at putting his finger on here ( both of the above quotes
are taken from Unlearning my Place ) is the atrocious competitiveness
and politics of living in a small island where everybody is fighting for their
little piece of earth. You can see it in the novels of Andre Camilleri when he
is describing Sicily, for example. The cold brutal violence of the mafia in
his case. Whereas in the Republic of Ireland, things are a lot less dramatic.
Dead. Everybody is caught in a kind of entropy that James Joyce identified on
page one of Dubliners – PARALYSIS. The disease has not gone away. Irish
society, in general, is still plagued by it. The absolute awfulness of social
convention. The tiresome scene that informs everything. Even poetry!
Choose
friends wisely,
enemies
will self-select,
smiling
like tigers or growling like bears,
an
arm around your shoulder
while
pissing down your leg,
the
welcome will be warm
before
you’re taken out and shot.
The indirect nature which seems to govern everybody’s
speech, the coded chatter, the back stabbing nature that it all creates. All
the atrocious hallmarks of the ‘Irish’ when at home; behind the smiling eyes,
the daggers in their bones.
The Love Poetry of Judas Iscariot – Poems by Mick Corrigan is a wonderful collection of both poetry and verse, the first is infused with Biblical insight and learning while the latter is concocted with sharp and bitter knowledge won, no doubt, first-hand by the author who thinks so little of the slights by now that he has made it the stuff of polished rhymes, and some memorable phrases. All the very best to him!
Peter O'Neill
April, 2022
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