Life
1936-; b. 15 July, Athlone, his mother a primary school teacher; ed. St.
Finian’s Mullingar [boarding-school], 1950-55; St. Patrick’s
College, Maynooth, 1955-62, Classics; taught Greek and English at St.
Finians, 1865-71; later moved to Newbridge College, Co. Kildare, turning
to writing professionally in 1987; winner of Muir Poetry Award 1983; American
Soc. Poetry Award, 1983, being the first European to do so; ed. Era
(lit. mag.); fnd. Goldsmith Press, 1972 (first at Castleknock, Co. Dublin,
latterly at Newbridge, Co. Kildare); collections include Midland (1972); Leaves (1974); Siege! (1976); Athlone?
(1980); ; Snapdragon
(1983); Seeing Double (1983), employing
experimental lay-out; Poems for Peace (1986); A Song for my
Father (1989); Peninsula (1992), with photo ills.; Collected
Poems (1983) and The Selected Poems, ed. and intro. Hugh Kenner
(1991); illustrators incl. Brian Bourke and Charles Cullen; also prose,
The Death of Metaphor (1990); Euripides’ Medea, after
Euripides (1992), assisted by Brian Arkins; served as juror on panel awarding
Neustadt International Poetry Award, Oklahoma Univ., 1996; rev. edn. of
Collected Poems (1996); hon. degree
(D.Litt.), Washburn Univ., 11 May 1996; apparently regarded as successor
to Pound by Hugh Kenner (‘an irish poet who feels no ‘need to
sound Irish’); admits the influence of Patrick Kavanagh’s ‘stance’
in conferring the possibility of an ‘unpretentious confrontation
with the theme’; papers held at Georgetown Univ.DIL DIW OCIL
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Works
Poetry collections, Midland
(Newbridge, Goldsmith Press 1972); Leaves (Newbridge, Goldsmith
Press 1974); Seige (Newbridge: Goldsmith Press 1974); Woodcutter
(Newbridge, Goldsmith Press 1978), 42pp; Athlone? (1980); Snapdragon
(1983); Collected Poems (ME National Poetry Foundation 1983; new
edn. Newbridge: Goldsmith Press 1984); Seeing Double (Newbridge:
Goldsmith Press 1984); The Death of Metaphor (Savage, MD: Barnes
& Noble; Newbridge: Goldsmith Press 1990) 174pp.; Euripides’
Medea, trans. [assisted by Brian Arkins] (Newbridge: Kavanagh Press
1991), intro. Brian Arkins, 91pp.; Peninsula: Poems from the Dingle
Penisula (Newbridge: Kavanagh Press 1992) [photos by Liam Lyons],
71pp.; Selected Poems, sel. and ed., Hugh Kenner (Omaha: Creighton
UP 1991; Goldsmith 1993) [var. Creighton/Goldsmith 1992], 186pp.; Poems
for Eimear (Little Rock: Milestone 1994); Elegies (Newbridge:
Goldsmith Press 1996), 108pp.; Jean-Paul Blot, trans., Peninsula: poèmes
de la Péninsule de Dingle. (Fédérop 1996), 100pp.;
The Hill of Allen (Newbridge: Goldsmith 2001), 44pp.
Gedichte, German/English Selection of Poems by Desmond Egan, ed. and intro. Prof. Stephan Kohl (Passau University); also available us a Japanese/English Selection called Paper Cranes, edited by Akira Yasukawa (Kansai University), and a new sequence, Poems for Eimear (Milestone, USA 1994).
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Criticism
Hugh Kenner, The Poet and his Work, Desmond Egan (Orono, Maine:
Northern Lights/ Newbridge: Kavanagh Press, 1990) 222pp.
Brian Arkins, Desmond Eagn, a critical study (Little Rock 1991; Milestone Press 1992), 142pp.
Peter van de Kamp, ‘Desmond Egan: Universal Provincialist’, in Geert Lernout, ed., The Crows Behind the Plough: History and Violence in Anglo-Irish Poetry and Drama [Costerus Ser. Vol. 79] (Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi Press 1991), pp.143-57.
Jim McWilliam, 'Desmond Egan’, in Alexander Gonzalez, Modern Irish Writers, 1997, p.75.)
Kevin T. McEaney, Review of Elegies (1996), in ILS, Fall 1996, p.11.
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Notes
Egan omitted from Field Day Anthology; DIL comments, ‘some
few poems ... have details so well and forcefully chosen that a language
of ebullient assertion partially compensates for the lack of technique.’
JRNL, Desmond Egan writes on Thomas Kinsella in Rome, in Poetry Ireland,
[No.] 35.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)