It has been quite a while since I attended a good old-fashioned literary evening. The last was in May last year – and that was the Chesterton conference at the University of Malta.
This time the star of the show was to be Seamus Heaney, one of Ireland’s four Nobel Prize Winners for literature – one of whom, George Bernard Shaw also won an Oscar. Heaney has been lauded by many but let me just quote the American poet, Robert Lowell, who considered him ‘the most important Irish poet since Yeats.’ Yeats too, you may recall, was a Nobel prize winner.
The first of nine children he was born into a Catholic family, one of whom was killed in a traffic accident. He was showered with many honours throughout his life.
Among several prestigious appointments he was also a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997 and its Poet in Residence from 1998 to 2006. From 1989 to 1994 he was at the same time Professor of Poetry in Oxford. Heaney’s poetic voice garnered a world wide appeal for his lyrical and moving imagery.
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To celebrate Heaney’s life the energetic Ambassador of Ireland Mr Jim Hennessy together with the University of Malta Department of English Students Association (DESA) last month organized a literary and musical event at the embassy in Ta’Xbiex. A special mention must here be made of Kathleen Vella and the officers and members of this Association: Lyndsey Grima, Thea Formosa, Kayleigh Sacco, Geraldine Sammut, David Hudson and their President John Spiteri Maempel as well as their Professor Ivan Callus.
Apart from paying tribute to this much loved poet the idea was to highlight the poet’s cross media appeal which saw American composer Mohammed Fairouz write a contemporary musical score for Heaney’s poem Anything can Happen. Mr Hennessy had approached the composer in NewYork to ask if the European Premier of his composition could take place in Malta. Mr Hennessy then contacted our own composer and harpist, Michelle K. Paris, to arrange an interpretation of Fairouz’s composition scored for a string quartet and voices. The musical ensemble, conducted by Michelle comprised Augusto Quintano and Lowri Norris on the violin, Joseph Mallia on the viola and Desiree Quintano on the cello. I must say that the audiences’ reaction to Anything Can Happen was very positive and the Embassy will be arranging to have it performed again shortly.
Apart from soprano Gabrielle Sargent, mezzo soprano Maria Christina Friggieri also participated in this event.
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After this premiere Gabrielle and Michelle performed a number of solo pieces. Michelle will, together with Keltika, a group of music-loving young people who love to sing and play Irish and Celtic music, will be holding their always popular concerts on Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 March at the Phoenicia Hotel to celebrate the Feast of St Patrick. Renowned Maltese poet Charles Caruana Carabez read an elegy In memoriam: Seamus Heaney which he composed especially for the evening. Heaney’s own poems were read with great feeling by Anne Finn, Alicia Randolph and Dillon MacAonghusa.
Guest speaker Dr James Corby, who is Senior Lecturer at the University of Malta where he teaches a course on Contemporary Poetry in which he devotes four one hour lectures to Heaney said that every year he’s painfully aware that he’s barely scraping the surface and that in the time available that evening he couldn’t possibly do justice to the full range and wealth of Seamus Healey’s poetic skill. “What I'd like to try to do, then, is simply to conjure through description and example a sense of Heaney's remarkable poetic spirit… it is not the poetry itself, nor simply the man, who is remembered, but something that bridges the two, infusing both, and it is this which I'm suggesting might be thought of as the poetic spirit. More than anything else it is this spirit that lives on, that survives, that endures,” Dr Corby told the audience in his well-researched paper. He said that the spirit of the poet is the articulated breath that comes to us as the poetic voice, which can never be reduced to the words themselves, and which lives on by shaping and colouring our perception of the world.
He added that “in the professional context of literary criticism, to talk of poetic spirit is almost to risk ridicule. The religious connotations and the hint of philosophical essentialism suggest a transcendentalist view of the poetic that today is deeply out of favour among literary scholars. The work of Seamus Heaney, however, should I think incline us to question this critical dogma, for Heaney was, and indeed remains, I would argue, a great poetic spirit, a spirit that has now taken its place alongside other great poetic spirits enduringly capable of recasting the world through the beguiling force of the poetic imagination. Heaney, I daresay, wouldn't be adverse to this seemingly anachronistic and quasi-religious terminology. He himself heard something in the word 'poet' that resists the secular, which cannot be detected, he thought, in the words 'novelist' or 'playwright'. But his poetic spirit is not the improbable, lustrous brilliance of Keats, nor is it the imperiously sure and visionary art of Yeats. What is so arresting about Heaney's poetic spirit or, if you prefer, his poetic voice, is its unique blend of grace, humility, wisdom and gently insistent exactitude. It is a poetic spirit that, in its own way, commands respect.”
. Dr Corby said that it is plainly evident across the whole range or Heaney's output: “it is there in the poetry, obviously, but it is also there in the sympathetic and illuminating critical essays, it shines through in his great translation of Beowulf, and in the many radio broadcasts he wrote, and in the marvellously engaging and generous interviews he gave.”
Dr Corby’s analysis was thoroughly convincing. He gave examples from Heaney’s poetry with every statement he made and at the end of the evening I was determined to re-read Seamus Heaney after many, many years, and as soon as possible. Dr Corby’s presentation emphasized the integrity and sensuality of Heaney’s work covering his life in Ireland as well as his extended tenure at both Harvard and Oxford universities.
He ended his talk in this way: “He was a poet capable of growing, changing with the times and yet having the courage to remain true to his own guiding poetic spirit. What could be more appropriate then, but to end this presentation with Heaney's final words, sent by text message no less, to his wife, 'noli timere' in Latin, or 'don't be afraid'. This, I believe, is the poetic spirit that endures.”
After the closing remarks by Kathleen Vella, the Ambassador also welcomed members of FEMA from the University of Malta who had recently visited Ireland as part of their business studies (Forbes.png) programme. He then launched the Embassy Facebook cultural page and thanked everyone. A reception followed during which someone said that it was the 50th anniversary of the marriage of Professor Peter Vassallo and his wife Madeleine, who were present for the event. A truly appropriate finale to a literary and musical evening and an excellent occasion to celebrate this auspicious anniversary of the learned Professor of English and his wife.
The links to the recording of the performances are being made available on the Embassy Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/embassyofirelandinmalta