1941- [var. 1942]; b. 23 Nov., Belfast; raised Glengormley, of a Protestant
family in ship engineering; ed. Royal Belfast Academical Institute, and
Trinity College, Dublin; failed eye-test for Merchant Navy (‘tried
for the Merchant Navy’); TCD, BA in Mod. Lang. (French), 1965; with
Michael Longley contrib. Icarus, the TCD undergraduate magazine
(fnd. Alec Reid), reviewing MacNeice’s Solstice in 1961; contributed
to Dublin Magazine; shared Eric Gregory Award with Michael Longley,
1965; spent a year in Paris, reading among others Camus, Sartre, and Pascal;
co-fnd. Atlantis (1970-74) with Seamus Deane and W. J. McCormack;
worked on London papers and journals from 1970, including features editor
on Vogue; published Ecclesiastes (1970); m. Doreen Douglas,
with children Kate and Rory; Denis Devlin Award, 1975;
NUU writer in residence 1978-79; lived in London, working for the BBC
and journals; made TV adaptations of Jennifer Johnston, John Montague,
Elizabeth Bowen, and completed translation versions of French and Greek
classics; lived in Kinsale, 1986-88; regular The Irish Times reviewer
and latterly correspondent from New York, 1993- ; adapt. Molière
for Field Day, 1984; TCD writing fellow, 1986; Night Crossing (1968);
Lives (1972); ed. The Sphere Book of Modern Irish Poetry
(1972), which he regards as ‘hack-work’; The Snow-Party
(1975); Poems, 1962-1978 (1979); Courtyards in Delft (1981),
reflect in interest in paintings of de Hoog, Munch, and Uccelli (‘Hunt
by Night’); The Hunt by Night (1982); Antarctica (1985);
trans. Gerard de Nerval’s The Chimeras (1982); trans. Molière’s
The School for Husbands, as High Time (Field Day
1984), set in Georgian house in Ireland [note Gallery edn. prod. date
27 Nov. 1985], also Molière’s School for Wives (1986);
winner Scott-Moncrief Prize with his trans. Selected Poems of Philippe
Jaccottet (1988), a Swiss-French poet; co-ed. with Peter Fallon
The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (1990), largely in response
to Paul Muldoon’s Northern-biased Faber anthology of 1986; resident
interviewer on Irish Times ‘Week-End’ literary section,
1986-early 1990s; Selected Poems (1991), winner of Irish Times
Literature Award (Poetry), 1992; Irish Times-Aer Lingus Poetry
Prize, 1992; Guggenheim Fellowship, and TCD DLitt, 1995; produced a version
of Euripides' Bacchae and of Racine’s Phaedra (Phèdre;
orig. after Euripides’ Hyppolytus), reduced from five acts
to two, and produced at the Gate with Dearbhla Molloy in the title role
(1996); divided his time between Fitzwilliam Sq., Dublin, and New York,
settling in Dublin again in 1996, with an address on Fitzwilliam Sq.;
edited a writer’s issue of Ireland of the Welcomes for Bord
Fáilte; issued The Yellow Book (1997), based on epistolary
style of Juvenal; received American Ireland Rund Literary Award and the
Martin Toonder Award; member of Aosdána; papers held at Emory University
(Atlanta); Mahon’s Collected Poems appeared in November 1999.
ORM HAM FDA OCIL DIL/2
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Poetry
Twelve Poems (Belfast: Festival 1965); Night-Crossing (London: OUP 1968; 1969); Ecclesiastes (Manchester: Phoenix Pamphlet Poets [No. 9] 1970); Beyond Howth Head [Poetry Ireland Edn.s II] (Dublin: Dolmen 1970), 16pp., with notes [ded. Jeremy Lewis; 23 stanzas]; Lives (London: OUP 1972), 39pp. [infra]; The Man Who Built His City in Snow (London: Poem-of-the-Month Club 1972); The Snow Party (London: OUP 1975); Light Music (Belfast: Ulsterman 1977), 23pp. [infra]; with Seamus Heaney, In Their Element (NI Arts Council 1977), pamphlet [infra]; The Sea in Winter (Mass: Deerfield Press; Dublin: Gallery 1979), [10pp.; ill. Timothy Engelland ded. ‘for Desmond O’Grady’]; Selected Poems 1962-1978 (Oxford: OUP 1979), 117pp. with index of first lines [ded. ‘For Doreen; and for Rory and Katherine when the time comes’]; Courtyards in Delft (Dublin: Gallery 1981); The Hunt by Night (Oxford: OUP 1982; Winston-Salem: Wake Forest UP, 1983), 63pp.[infra]; A Kensington Notebook (London: Anvil Press 1984) [ltd. edn. 500]; Antarctica (Dublin: Gallery 1985) [pamphlet]; Selected Poems of Derek Mahon (Oldcastle: Gallery in assoc. OUP 1991; rep. London; Penguin 1993), 194pp. [infra]; The Yaddo Letter (Oldcastle: Gallery 1992), pamphlet [5pp.] front. by Barrie Cooke [ltd. edn. 350 copies]; The Hudson Letter (Lough Crew: Gallery 1995; Wake Forest 1996), 77pp. [poem in 18 pts., printed with ‘The Yaddo Letter’]; The Yellow Book (Dublin: Gallery 1997), 58pp. [infra]; The Collected Poems of Derek Mahon (Oldcastle: Gallery 1999), 360pp.; “New Wave”, in London Review of Books 23, 7 (5 Apr. 2001), p.6.
Plays
High Time: A comedy in one act based on Molière’s "School for Husbands" (Gallery 1985, 1993), 55pp.; The Bacchae, After Euripides (Dublin: Gallery 1991; 1993), 59/60pp.; Racine's Phaedra (Oldcastle: Gallery 1995).
Translations
Ed. & trans., Selected Poems of Philippe Jaccottet (Harmondsworth: Penguin/Winston-Salem: Wake Forest UP 1988), reiss. in bilingual version as Words in the Wind: Selected Poems of Philippe Jaccottet (Oldcastle: Gallery 1999), 79pp.; Gerard de Nerval, The Chimeras - A Version of Les Chimères by Gérard de Nerval (Dublin: Gallery Press 1982), cloth [also Gallery 27 Nov. 1985], 55pp. [‘El Desdichado’, ‘Myrtho’, ‘Horus’, ‘Anteros’, ‘Delphica’, ‘Artemis’, ‘Christ on the Mount of Olives, I-V’, ‘Pythagorean Lines’]; ‘Paranoia’, ‘The Stone Age’, and ‘Fragile as a Shell’, in Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Pharaoh's Daughter [bilingual edition] (Dublin: Gallery 1990), pp.57, 69, 95.
Prose
Journalism: Selected Prose 1970-1995, introduced by Terence Brown (Oldcastle: Gallery 1996), 239pp. [incl. writing on MacNeice, Beckett, Brian Moore, Longley, Montague, Heaney; also a record of a meeting with Anthony Burgess]. Articles (Selected), ‘Patrick Kavanagh’, The Dublin Magazine, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Spring 1968), pp.6-8; ‘Poetry in Northern Ireland’, Twentieth Century Studies, No. 4 (November 1970), pp.89-93; [q. title,] Écrire en Ulster’, in Lettres Nouvelles (March 1973) [q.pp.]; The Listener, 27 Sept. 1973, p.412; ‘MacNeice in England and Ireland’, in Terence Brown and Alec Reid, eds., Time Was Away (Dublin: Dolmen 1974), pp.113-22; ‘Orpheus Ascending, The Poetry of Paul Durcan’, Irish Review, No. 1 1986), pp.15-19; Also, ed., Ireland of the Welcomes, ‘Special Issue: New Irish Writing’, Vol. 45, No. 5 (Sept.-Oct. 1996).
Miscellaneous
‘The Sheep and the Goats’, review of Paul Muldoon, ed., Faber Anthology of Contemporary Irish Poetry, in Irish Times, 7 June 1986, p.13; ‘Louis MacNeice Issue’, in Carrickfergus and District Historical Journal, VII: (Carrickfergus 1994). Also, article on John Hewitt, in The Irish Times (2 Jan. 1988); “Shapes and Shadows”, poem incl. in Adrian Rice & Angela Reid, eds., A Conversation Piece (Nat. Museums & galleries of N. Ireland [2002]), and rep. in The Irish Times (29 June 2002) [response to painting of William Scott]; ‘Icarus’ [entry], in W. J. McCormack, ed., The Blackwell Companion to Modern Irish Culture (1999; 2001), p.296.
Anthologies & editions
Ed. Sphere Book of Modern Irish Poetry (London: Sphere Bks. 1972); ed. with Peter Fallon, The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1990); Racine’s Phaedra (Gallery 1995), 72[64]pp.; Derek Mahon, sel. & intro., Jonathan Swift: Selected Poems (London: Faber & Faber 2002), 122pp. [infra].
Bibliopraphical details
Light Music (Ulsterman Publications 1977; ed. Frank Ormsby), 23ppp. [20 haikus]; this contains twenty epiphanic sets of short verse with variations from those printed in the Selected Poems (1991), incl. omission of 3. Portrush; addition of 3. Negatives; omission of 4. Donegal; renaming of 7. Walking the Boy as 7. Rory; reordering of 9. Aesthetics as 5. Aesthetics; revision of 10. Mozart to 14. Mozart [ ‘Float art out over/the dark field/and moonlit outhouses.//Turn it up so they can hear/on the other planets', to ‘The Clarinet Concerto/in A, K.622,/the second movement,//turn it up [... &c.]; 13. Joyce in Paris; renaming of 14. Come in, as 16 Enter; omission of 15. Magritte; 16. Spring, 1, Astronaut; reordering of 18. Byzantiaum as 12. Byzantium; addition of 19. East Strand; 20. Plane; 21. Absence; 22. Night; 23. Dark Edge; 24. Haven; 25. Fly-life; 26 Bluebells; 27. Loft; 28. Waterfront; 29. Outside; 30. Donegal; 31. Veritcal; 32. Rogue Leaf; 34. Flying; renumbering of 20. Revelation as 33. Revelation. [End.]
In Their Element: Seamus Heaney & Derek Mahon ([Belfast:] NI Arts Council 1977), pamphlet [18pp.]; contains poems by Heaney [see Rx], and poems by Mahon: "Girls in their Seasons"; "In Carrowdore Churchyard"; "Death of a Film-star"; "An Unborn Child"; "In Belfast"; "Edvard Munch"; "A Dark Country"; "After Cavafy"; "Afterlives" [ded. James Simmons] 2; "The Snow Party"; "A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford"; "Ford Manor"; "Penshurst Place"; "The chair squeaks …". The poems were read at Belfast; Irvinestown; Omagh; Londonderry; Magherafelt; Banbridge; Ballycastle, 23-19 May.
The Hunt by Night (London: OUP 1982; Wake UP, 1983), 63pp.[ded. ‘In memory of J. G. Farrell, 1935-1979’; Poetry Book Society Choice]; contains Courtyards in Delft (for Gordon Woods); Derry Morning; North Wind: Portrush; an Old Lady; Rathlin Island; Brecht in Svendborg; Knut Hamsen in Old Age; The Andean Flute; At the Pool; Tractatus (for Aidan Higgins); Morning Radio; Rock Music; The Dawn Chorus; Table Talk; Another Sunday morning; The Hunt by Night; Girls on the Bridge; Brighton Beach (for Paul Smyth); How to Live; Ovid in Tomis; A Lighthouse in Maine; The Joycentenary Ode; A Postcard from Berlin (for Paul Durcan); One of these Nights; The Terminal bar; from The Drunken Boat; A Garage in Cork; The Woods; The Eart; The Globe in North Carolina;
Lives (London: OUP 1972), 39pp.[‘for my father and mother’; title poem ded. Seamus Heaney]; contains Homecoming; A Dying Art; Ecclesiastes; Edvard Much; In the Aran Islands; Rocks; Night Song; An Image from Beckett (for Doreen Douglas); The Last Dane; (for Tom and Peggy MacIntyre) The Archaeologist (for Hugh Maxton [W. J. McCormack]; J. P. Donleavy’s Dublin; Lives (ded. Seamus Heaney); Deaths; A Dark Country; Folk Song; A Tolerable Wisdom; Job’s Comforter; Rage for Order; After Cavafy; As It Should Be; What Will Remain; Consolations of Philosophy (for Eugene Lambe); Gipsies Revisited (for Julian Harvey); Entropy; I am Raftery; Beyond Howth Head; Notes on Beyond Howth Head; note that an epigraph from Pascal is added to the pamphlet publication: ‘Il faut partir. Cela n’est pas volontaire. Vous êtes embarqué’.)
Selected Poems 1962-1978 (OUP 1979), 117pp.; ded., ‘for Doreen; and for Rory and Katherine when the time comes’; contains Glengormley; The Poets of the Nineties; In Carrowdore Churchyard; The Spring Vacation; Grandfather; My Wicked Uncle; The Death of Marilyn Monroe; Preface to a Love Poem; Bird Sanctuary; A Mythological Figure; De Quincey at Grasmere; Breton Walks; Van Gogh in the Borinage; The Forger; Jail Journal; Day Trip in Donegal; September in Great Yarmouth; An Unborn child; the condensed Shorter testament; Girls in their Seasons; Canadian Pacific; Epitaph for Robert Flaherty; April on Toronto Island; Thinking of Inishere in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Homecoming; A Kind of People; The Poets Lie Where They Fell; A Dying Art; Ecclesiastes; Teaching in Belfast; Bruce Ismay’s Soliloquy [on the Titanic]; The Studio; In the Aran Islands; Rock; Two Songs; A tolerable Wisdom; An Image from Beckett; The Early Anthropologists; Lives; Deaths; Rage for Order; Poem Beginning with a Line by Cavafy; As it Should Be; A Stong Age Figure Far Below; Consolations of Philosophy; Gipsies; Entropy; I am Raftery; Dog Days; Beyond Howth Head; Afterlives [ded. James Simmons]; Leaves; Father-in-law; Homage to Malcolm Lowry; Going Home; The Snow Party; The Last of The Fire Kings; The North African Campaign; The Golden Bough; The Antigone Riddle; The Facts of Life; Nostalgias; The Mute Phenomena; Matthew V. 29-30; A Refusal to Mourn; Postcards; The banished Gods; A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford; Ford Manor; Penshurst Place; Three Poems after Jaccottet; Surrey Poems; Soles; Jet Trail; Autobiographies; Light Music; The Return; The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush; The Blackbird; The Old Snaps; The Attic; The Poet in Residence; Everything is Going To Be All Right; Heraclitus on Rivers; The Window; The Sea in Winter [index of first lines]. Acknowl. to Aquarius, New Statesman, Poetry Review, Honest ulsterman, Hibernia, Irish Times, New irish Writing, Ciphers, Magill, and Ploughshares.
Selected Poems (Viking/Gallery in assoc. OUP 1991; rep. 1993), 194pp. [ded. ‘For Rory and Katie’], contains In Carrowdore Churchyard (at the grave of Louis MacNeice), Glengormley, Grandfather, Preface to a Love Poem, De Quincey in Later Life, Four Walks in the Country Near Saint-Brieuc [Morning, Man and Bird, After Midnight, Exit Molloy]; The Forger; A Portrait of the Artist (for Colin Middleton); Day Trip in Donegal; An Unborn Child (for Michael and Edna Longley); Canadian Pacific; Thinking of Inis Oírr in Cambridge, Mass. (for Eamon Grennan); Homecoming; A Dying Art; Ecclesiastes; After the Titanic [formerly Bruce Ismay’s Soliloquy]; The Studio; Aran; Two Songs; A Tolerable Wisdom; An Image from Beckett (for Doreen); Lives (for Seamus Heaney); Death; As it Should Be; A Stone Age Figure Far Below (formerly ‘The Archaeologist’; for Bill McCormack); Consolations of Philosophy (for Eugene Lambe); Gipsies; beyond Howth Head (for Jeremy Lewis); Afterlives (for James Simmons); Leaves; Dream Days; Nostalgias; Father-in-Law; Homage to Malcolm Lowry; The Snow Party (for Louis Asekoff); The Last of the Fire Kings; A Refusal to Mourn; A Disused Shed in Co. Wicklow; The Mute Phenomena (after Nerval); Light Music [34 haiku]; Midsummer; Ford Manor; Penshurst Place; How to Live; Ovid in Love; from The Drunken Boat (after Rimbaud); three Poems by Philippe Jaccottet (The Voice; Ignorance; Words in the Air); Soles; Autobiographies; A Kensington Notebook [4 pts.]; Going Home (for John Hewitt); The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush; Rock Music; The Blackbird; The Attic (for John and Evelyn Montague); The Old Snaps; Dawns at St. Patrick’s; Beyond the Pale (after Corbière); Everything is Going To Be All Right; Heraclitus on Rivers; The Sea in Winter (for Desmond O‘Grady); ‘Songs of Praise’; Courtyards in Delft; Rathlin; Derry Morning; North Wind: Portrush; an Old Lady; Old Roscoff; Brecht in Svendborg; Knut Hamsun in Old Age; The Andean Flute; Tractatus (for Aidan Higgins); Katie at the Pool; the Dawn Chorus; Morning Radio (for John Scotney); Table Talk; Another Sunday Morning; A Lighthouse in Maine; St. Eustace; The Joycentenary Ode; A postcard from Berlin (for Paul Durcan); One of these Nights; A Garage in Co. Cork; The Woods; Craigvara House; The Terminal Bar; After Pasternak (White Night; The Earth); The Globe in North Carolina; Squince; Mt. Gabriel; Tithonus; Girls on the Bridge; The Hunt by Night; Brighton Beach; Achill; Ovid in Tomis; October in Hyde Park; Dejection; Night Drive; Antartica; Kinsale; Death in the Sun (Albert Camus 1913-1960). [No acknowls.]
The Yellow Book (Oldcastle: Gallery 1997), 57pp. CONTENTS: Landscape page [11]; I. Night Thoughts [12]; II. Axel’s Castle [14]; III. At the Shelbourne [16]; IV. ‘shiver in your tenement’ [18]; V Schopenhauer’s Day 20]; VI. To Eugene Lambe in Heaven [23]; VII. An Bonnan Bui 26]; VIII. Remembering the ‘90s 28; IX. At the Gate Theatre 30; X. The Idiocy of Human Aspiration 33; XI. At the Chelsea Arts Club [35]; XII. Aphrodite’s Pool [37]; XIII. Dusk [39]; XIV. Rue des Beaux-Arts [41]; XV. Smoke [44]; XVI. America Deserta [46]; XVII. The World of J. G. Farrell [49]; XVIII. Death in Bangor [51]; XIX. On the Automation of the Irish Lights [54]; XX Christmas in Kinsale [56]. The epigraph is from Cyril Connolly’s The Unquiet Grave [Palinurus:] ‘To live in a decadence need not make us despair; it is but one technical problem the more which a writer has to solve.’
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Edna Longley, review of Night-Crossing, in The Honest Ulsterman, 8 (Dec. 1968), pp.27-29.
‘Harriet Cooke talks to the Poet Derek Mahon’, Irish Times (17 Jan. 1973), p.10.
Terence Brown, ‘Four New Voices, Poets of the Present’, in Northern Voices: Poets from Ulster (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1975), [q.p.].
D. E. S. Maxwell, ‘Contemporary Poetry in Northern Ireland’, in Douglas Dunn, ed., Two Decades of Irish Writing (Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire: Carcanet 1975), pp.166-85 [remarks on Mahon, pp.179-83.
Douglas Dunn, ‘Let God not Abandon Us, on the Poetry of Derek Mahon’, Stone Ferry Review, 2 (Winter 1978), pp.7-30.
James Liddy, ‘Irish Poets and the Protestant Muse’, Éire-Ireland: A Journal of Irish Studies, 14, 2 (Summer 1979), pp.118-[28].
Stan Smith, [review article on Mahon, widely considered injudicious], Literary Review, 22 (8 Aug. 1980), p.11.
Willie Kelly, ‘“Each Poem for me is a New Beginning”’, interview with Derek Mahon’, Cork Review, 2, 3 (June 1981), pp.10-12.
Andrew Waterman, ‘Somewhere, Out There, Beyond: The Poetry of Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon’, in PN Review, 21 (1981), pp.39-47.
John Byrne, ‘Derek Mahon: A Commitment to Change’, Crane Bag, 6, 1 (1982), pp.62-72.
Declan Kiberd, review of Poems 1962-1978, in Irish University Review, 12, 1 (1982), p.109.
Stan Smith, in Inviolable Voice: History and Twentieth Century Poetry (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1982), pp.188-93.
Declan Kiberd, review of Poems 1962-1978, in Irish University Review, 12 (1982), cp.109.
John Willett [letter to the Editor], Times Literary Supplement (13 May 1983), p.489.
Eamon Grennan, ‘“To the Point of Speech”: The Poetry of Derek Mahon, in James D. Brophy and Raymond J. Porter, eds., Contemporary Irish Writing, Boston: Iona College Press, 1983, p.15.
Edna Longley, review article, Fortnight 196 (Summer 1983).
Adrian Frazer, ‘Proper Portion: Derek Mahon’s The Hunt by Night’, in Éire-Ireland, 18, 4 (Winter 1983), pp.136-43.
Seamus Deane, Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature (London: Faber 1984), p.156, p.163.
Maurice Riordan, ‘An Urbane Perspective: The Poetry of Derek Mahon’, in Maurice Harmon, ed., The Irish Writer and the City (Gerrard’s Cross: Smythe 1984), pp.167-79.
Gerald Dawe, ‘Icons and Lares: Derek Mahon and Michael Longley’, in Gerald Dawe & Edna Longley, eds., Across a Roaring Hill (Belfast: Blackstaff 1985), pp.218-35 [rep in Dawe, Against Piety: Essays in Irish Poetry (Belfast: Lagan 1995), pp.153-68].
Edna Longley, ‘Poetry and Politics in Northern Ireland’, in Crane Bag, 9, 1 (1985), pp.26-40.
Seamus Deane, ‘Derek Mahon: Freedom from History’ in Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature (London: Faber 1985), pp.156-65.
Terence Brown, ‘An Interview with Derek Mahon’, Poetry Ireland Review, 14 (1985), pp.11-19.
Dillon Johnston, ‘MacNeice and Mahon’, in Irish Poetry After Joyce (Notre Dame UP 1985), pp.136-43, also p.224-46.
John Constable, ‘Derek Mahon’s Development’, in Agenda, 22, 3-4 (Autumn/Winter 1984-85), pp.107-18.
James McElroy, ‘Derek Mahon’s “Rage for Order”’, Northwest Review, 24, 1 (1986), pp.93-101.
Edna Longley, ‘The Singing Line: Form in Derek Mahon’s Poetry’, in Poetry in the Wars (1986), pp.170-84.
Brendan Kennelly, ‘Derek Mahon’s Humane Perspective’, in Terence Brown and Nicholas Grene, eds., Tradition and Influence in Anglo-Irish Poetry (London: Macmillan 1989), pp.143-52.
Joris Duytschaever, ‘History in the Poetry of Derek Mahon’, in Duytschaever and Geert Lernout, eds., History and Violence in Anglo-Irish Literature [Conference of 9 April 1986; Costerus Ser. Vol. 71] (Amsterdam: Rodopi 1988), pp.97-109.
Kathleen Mullaney, ‘A Poetics of Silence: Derek Mahon “At One Remove’, Journal of Irish Literature, 18, 3 (Sept. 1989), pp.45-54.
Caroline MacDonagh, ‘The Image of the Big House in the Poetry of Derek Mahon and Tom Paulin’ in Jacqueline Genet, ed., The Big House in Ireland (Dingle: Brandon NY: Barnes & Noble 1991), pp.289-303.
David Manicom, ‘Mapping the Sublime in Derek Mahon’, in Graph 10 (Summer/Autumn 1991), [pp.1-2]
‘Derek Mahon Interviewed’ Poetry Review, 81, 2 [‘Irish Issue’] (Chicago: Summer 1991) [q.p.].
James J. Murphy, Lucy McDairmid and Michael Durkan, ‘Q. and A. with Derek Mahon’ Irish Literary Supplement, 10 (Fall 1991), pp.27-28.
Bill Tinley, ‘International Perspectives in the Poetry of Derek Mahon’ Irish University Review, 21 (Spring-Summer 1991), pp.106-17.
Kathleen McCracken, ‘Homophrosyne: The French Element in the Poetry of Derek Mahon’ in Joseph McMinn, ed., The Internationalism of Irish Literature and Drama (Gerrards Cross: Smythe 1992), pp.181-192.
Peter McDonald, ‘History and Poetry: Derek Mahon and Tom Paulin’ in Elmer Andrews, ed., Contemporary Irish Poetry (London: Macmillan 1992), pp.86-106.
Hugh Haughton, ‘“Even now there are places where a thought might grow”: Places and Displacement in the Poetry of Derek Mahon’ in Neil Corcoran, ed., The Chosen Ground: Essays on the Contemporary Poetry of Northern Ireland (Brigend, Mid Glamorgan: Seren Books, Dufour 1992), pp.87-120.
Terence Brown, ‘Home and Away: Derek Mahon's France‘ in Barbara Hayley & Christopher Murray, eds., Ireland and France - A Bountiful Friendship: Essays in Honour of Patrick Rafroidi (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1992), pp.144-151.
Istvan D. Racz, ‘Mask Lyrics in the Poetry of Paul Muldoon and Derek Mahon’ in Donald E. Morse, et al., eds., A Small Nation’s Contribution to the World (Gerrards Cross: Smythe 1993), pp.107-18.
Christopher Murray, ed., Irish University Review, ‘Derek Mahon Special Number’, 24, 1 (1994).
Edna Longley, The Living Stream: Literature and Revisionism in Ireland, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe 1994).
Edna Longley, ‘Derek Mahon: Extreme Religion of Art’ in Michael Kenneally, ed., Poetry in Contemporary Irish Literature [Studies in Contemporary Irish Literature 2] (Gerrards Cross: Smythe 1995), pp.280-303.
Jon Stallworthy, ‘Fathers and Sons’ [on McNeice with Mahon, Longley, and Muldoon], Bullán, 2, 1 (Summer 1995), pp1-15, espec., 11ff.
Kathleen Shields, ‘Derek Mahon’s Nerval’ Translation as Literature, 2, 1 (1995), pp.60-73 [infra].
Mark Ford, ‘Inteview with Graham Bradshaw’ in Robert Crawford, ed., Talking Verse (St. Andrews: Verse 1995).
Elmer Andrews, ‘The Poetry of Derek Mahon: “Places where a Thought Might Grow”’, in Andrews, ed., Contemporary Irish Poetry: A Collection of Critical Essays (London: Macmillan 1996), pp.235-309.
Enrico Reggiani, In Attesa della Vita: Introduzione alla poetica di Derek Mahon [Scienze filologiche e letteratura 55] (Milano: Vita e pensiero 1996), xv, 413pp..
Tim Kendall, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, in Poetry Review, LXXXVI (Spring 1996), pp.52-53..
Lucy McDiarmid, review of The Hudson Letter (1995), in Irish Literary Supplement (Spring 1996), pp.20-21.
Jamie McKendrick, ‘Earth-residence’ review of The Hudson Letter (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press [1995]), 79pp., in Times Literary Supplement (12 April 1996), p.25 [infra].
Martin Mooney, ‘Nice Little Earners’ review of Journalism, in Fortnight Review (Oct. 1996), p.35.
Patrick Crotty, ‘Letters from - and to - Portrush’ review of Journalism, in Times Literary Supplement (29 Nov. 1997), p.26.
Gerald Dawe, ‘Floating free of the Here and Now’ review of The Yellow Book, in Irish Times (20 Dec. 1997).
Des O’Rawe, review of Phaedra, in Irish Review (Winter 1997), p.143ff.
Peter McDonald, ‘Derek Mahon, Tom Paulin, and the Lost Tribe’ in Mistaken Identities: Poetry and Northern Ireland (Clarendon Press 1997), pp.81-110.
Peter McDonald, ‘Michael Longley’s Homes’ in Mistaken Identities: Poetry and Northern Ireland (London: Clarendon 1997), pp.110-[22].
Hugh Haughton, ‘Le spleen in Dublin’ review of The Yellow Book in Times Literary Supplement (14 April 1998), p.24 [infra].
Peter McDonald, ‘“With Eyes Turned Down on the Part”: MacNeice’s Classicism’ in Louis MacNeice and His Influence, ed. Kathleen Devine & Alan Peacock (Gerrards Cross: C. Smythe 1998), pp.34-52.
Peter McDonald, ‘Incurable Ache’, in Poetry Review, LVI (Spring 1998), pp.116-17.
Sean O’Brien, ‘Derek Mahon: World as Exile’ in The Deregulated Muse (Bloodaxe 1998), pp.97-103.
Daniel Tobin, ‘In the Back of Beyond: Tradition and History in the Poetry of Derek Mahon’ Studies, 88, 351 (Autumn 1999), pp.295-304.
Christina Hunt Mahony, ‘Derek Mahon’ in Contemporary Irish Literature: Transforming Tradition (NY: St Martin’s Press: London: Macmillan 1999), pp.58-65.
Oonagh Warke, review of The Yellow Book, in Books Ireland (March 1999), pp.56-57.
Eamon Grennan, ‘“To the Point of Speech”: The Poetry of Derek Mahon’ in Facing the Music: Irish Poetry in the Twentieth Century (Creighton UP 1999), pp.257-72.
John Goodby, ‘Reading Protestant Writing: Representations of the Troubles in the Poetry of Derek Mahon and Glenn Patterson’s Burning Your Own’ in Kathleen Devine, ed., Modern Irish Writers and the Wars [Ulster Editions and Monographs, No. 7] (Gerrards Cross: Smythe 1999), pp.219-89.
John Redmond, ‘Perish the Thought’, review of Selected Poems, in London Review of Books (8 Feb. 2001), pp.30-31.
Eamon Grennan, interview with Derek Mahon, in The Paris Review, 154, [Vol. 42] (2000), c.p.166.
Christina Hunt Mahony, review of The Yellow Book, and Ciaran Carson, Opera et Cetera’ in Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 25, 1 (2000), pp.239-41 [infra].
Hugh Haughton, review of Collected Poems, Times Literary Supplement (6 Oct. 2000)..
Jefferson Holdridge, ‘Night-Rule: Decadence and Sublimity in Derek Mahon from The Yellow Book to the ‘Italian Poems', in Journal of Irish Studies [IASIL-Japan], XVII (2002), pp.50-69 [infra]..
Kennedy-Andrews, Elmer, ed., The Poetry of Derek Mahon (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 2002), 356pp. & index [essays by Edna Longley, Gerald Dawe, Bruce Stewart, Jerzy Harniewicz, Eamonn Hughes, Richard York, Frank Sewell, John Goodby, Neil Corcoran, Stan Smith, Patrick Crotty]
Terence Brown, ‘Mahon and Longley: Place and Placelessness’, in Matthew Campbell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry (Cambridge UP 2003), pp.133-48.
Eve Patton, ‘Translations: An Interview with Derek Mahon’ in Rhinoceros, No.3 [q.d.], pp.81-90.
Jonathan Hufstader Tongue of Water, Teeth of Stones: Northern Irish Poetry and Social Violence (Kentucky UP 1999).
Eileen Battersby, Interview in The Irish Times (9 March 2001).
Dillon Johnson, interview in James. P. Myers Jr., ed., Writing Irish: Selected Interviews with Irish Writers, in Irish Literary Supplement (2001) [q.pp.]
James Liddy, ‘Irish Poets and the Protestant Muse’, in Eire-Ireland: A Journal of Irish studies, 14, 2 (Summer 1979), pp.118-[28]
Peter McDonald, ‘Louis MacNeice’s Posterity’, Princeton University Library Chronicle, LIX, 3, Spring 1998, pp.376-97, p.97, ftn. 5 [p.101].
Tom Paulin, ‘A Terminal Ironist’, in Ireland and the English Crisis (Bloodaxe 1984), pp.55-59.
Istvan D. Racz, ‘Mask Lyrics in the Poetry of Paul Muldoon and Derek Mahon’, in Donald E. Morse, et al., eds., A Small Nation’s Contribution to the World, Gerrards Cross: Smythe, 1993, pp.107-18, p.113, 116.
Gerald Dawe, ‘Icons and Lares: Derek Mahon and Michael Longley’, in Dawe and Edna Longley, eds., Across a Roaring Hill (Belfast: Blackstaff 1985), pp.107-18.
Edna Longley, ‘”When Did You Last See Your Father?”: Perceptions of the Past in Northern Irish Writing 1965-1985’, in The Living Stream: Literature and Revisionism in Ireland, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe 1994), p.161.
John Hufstader, ‘Derek Mahon: Tongues of Water, Teeth of Stones’[, in] Northern Irish Poetry and Social Violence (Kentucky UP 1999), pp.111-37.
Hugh Haughton, ‘”Even now there are places where a thought might grow”: Places and Displacement in the Poetry of Derek Mahon’, in Neil Corcoran, ed., The Chosen Ground: Essays on the Contemporary Poetry of Northern Ireland (Brigend, Mid Glamorgan: Seren Books; Dufour 1992), pp.87-122.
Richard York, ‘Derek Mahon as Translator’, in Rivista Alicantian de Estudios Ingleses, 5 (1992), pp.163-81.
Terence Brown, ‘Derek Mahon: The Poet and Painting’, in Irish University Review, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 1994), pp. 38-50..
Kathleen Mullaney, ‘Derek Mahon’s Poetry’, in Tjebbe A. Westendrop & Jane Mallinson, eds., Politics and the Rhetoric of Poetry: Perspectives on Modern Anglo-Irish Poetry [The Literature of Politics, The Politics of Literature, Vol. 5] (Amstersdam: Rodopi 1995), pp.47-55.
Colin Graham, ‘Derek Mahon’s Cultural Marginalia’, in Eve Patten, ed., Returning to Ourselves: Second Volume from the John Hewitt International Summer School (Lagan 1995), pp.240-48.
Alan Wall, ‘Derek Mahon’s Emblem Books’, in Agenda, 33, No.3-4 (1996), pp.165-75.
Patricia Craig, ‘History and its Retrieval in Contemporary Northern Irish Poetry: Paulin, Montague and Others’, in Andrews, ed., Contemporary Irish Poetry, pp.107-23.
Richard Kearney, ‘Myth and Modernity in Irish Poetry’, in Elmer Andrews, ed., Contemporary Irish Poetry: A Collection of Critical Essays (London: Macmillan 1996), pp.41-62.
Martin Mooney, ‘Nice Little Earners’, in Fortnight Review (Oct. 1996), p.35 [review of Derek Mahon, Journalism, Gallery 1996, and Gregory A. Schirmer, ed., Reviews and Essays of Austin Clarke, Smythe 1996)].
John Redmond, ‘Perish the Thought’, review of Selected Poems, in London Review of Books (8 Feb. 2001), pp.30-31.
Irish University Review, ‘Derek Mahon Special Number’, ed. Brian Donnelly, 24, 1 (1994), CONTENTS: Catriona Clutterbuck, ‘“Elpenor’s Crumbling Oar”: Disconnection and Art in Derek Mahon’, pp.6-26; Peter Denman, ‘Know the One? Insolent Ontology and Mahon’s Revisions’, pp.27-37; Terence Brown, ‘Derek Mahon, The Poet and Painting’, pp.38-50; Michael Longley, ‘The Empty Holes of Spring: Some Reminiscences of Trinity Days & Two Poems Addressed to Derek Mahon’, pp.51-57 [Incls. poems, “Birthmarks for D.M.” [... &c.]; Eavan Boland, ‘Compact and Compromise, Derek Mahon as a Young Poet’, pp.61-66; Kathleen Shields, ‘Derek Mahon’s Poetry of Belonging’, pp.67-79; Bill Tinley, ‘“Harmonies and Disharmonies”, Mahon’s Francophile Poetics’, pp.80-95; John Redmond, ‘Wilful Inconsistency: Derek Mahon’s Verse-Letters’, pp.96-11; Christopher Murray, ‘“For the Fun of the Thing”: Derek Mahon’s Dramatic Adaptations’, pp.117-130; Jody Allen-Randolph, ‘Derek Mahon, A Bibliography’, pp.131-56 [incl. 400+ items of lit. journalism]
‘Derek Mahon's Poetry of Belonging', Irish University Review, 24, 1 (1994), 67-79: Bibl., Edna Longley on Derek Mahon, Fortnight, 211 (Dec. 1984- Jan 1985), pp.17-18; Stan Smith, Inviolable Voices, pp.188-92; Edna Longley, ‘Louis MacNeice: “The Walls are Flowing”, in Across the Roaring Hill, ed., Dawe & Longley (Belfast: Blackstaff 1985), p.99; Basil Payne, Studies, 58 (Spring 1969), p.76; Philip Hobsbaum, ‘Derek Mahon’, in Contemporary Poets, ed. James Vinson (St. James’ Press 1975), p.985; Gerald Dawe, Sweet Discourses, Honest Ulsterman, 69 (June-October 1981), p.67; Maurice Harmon, [q.t.,] Irish University Review, 12, 1 (Spring 1982), p.103; Neil Corcoran, ‘Flying the Private Kite’, Times Literary Supplement (18 Feb. 1983), p.160.
Joris Duytschaever, ‘History in the Poetry of Derek Mahon’, in Duytschaever and Geert Lernout, eds., History and Violence in Anglo-Irish Literature [Costerus Ser. Vol. 71] (Amsterdam: Rodopi 1988), pp.97-109, cites the following Brendan Kennelly, ‘Lyric Wit’, Irish Times ( 22 Dec. 1979); Aidan C. Mathews, ‘Winter Quarters for a Poet-exile’, Irish Times (Feb. 19 1983), [q.p.]; Edna Longley, review of Night-Crossing, in Honest Ulsterman, 8 (Dec. 1968), pp.27-29; Edna Longley, ‘The Singing Line: Form in Derek Mahon’s Poetry’, in Poetry in the Wars (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe 1986), pp.170-84; Dillon Johnston, Irish Poetry After Joyce (Notre Dame UP; Dublin: Dolmen 1285); Seamus Heaney, Place and Displacement: Recent Poetry of Northern Ireland (Trustees of Dove Cottage 1985); Paul Durcan, ‘The Work of Derek Mahon’, Magill (Christmas 1984), p.43; Terence Brown, ‘An Interview with Derek Mahon’, Poetry Ireland Review, 14 (Autumn 1985), pp.16-17.
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Edward Lucie-Smith, ed., and intro., British Poetry Since 1945 (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1970), incls. ‘My Wicked Uncle’, ‘An Unborn Child’, with the introductory remark, ‘Derek Mahon’s work is close to Heaney’s in style, and shows much the same influences, and the same high level of technical accomplishment.’ (pp.342-45).
Blake Morrison and Andrew Motion, eds., The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1982), contains ‘Afterlives’, ‘Ecclesiastes’, ‘Lives’, ‘A Refusal to Mourn’, ‘the Last of the Fire Kings’, ‘The Banished Gods’, ‘Leaves’, ‘The Snow Party’, ‘A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford’ (pp.69-80).
Peter Fallon and Seán Golden, ed., Soft Day: a miscellany of contemporary Irish writing, ed. (Notre Dame/Wolfhound 1980), contains "Ford Manor"; "Penshurst Place"; "Please"; "The Return". Surrey Poems.
Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, gen. ed., Seamus Deane (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3, selects from Night Crossing the poems "Glengormley", "In Carrowdore Churchyard [to Louis MacNeice], A Portrait of the Artist", "Thinking of Inishere in Cambridge, Mass."; from Lives, "Ecclesiastes", "An Image of Beckett"; "I Am Raftery" [omitted from Selected Poems, 1991]; from The Snow Party, "The Mute Phenomenon", "A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford"; from Poems 1962-1978, "The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush"; from The Hunt by Night, "The Globe of North Carolina", "Courtyards in Delft", and "Derry Morning". REMS at 633n 648, 652, 1311-12; 1315; 1371, 1375; BIOG 1434 [no criticism cited].
Hibernia Books 19, [20], lists ‘Dog Days’, [as] Poem on the Underground (London: Faber/British Library [n.d.]); ‘Irish Issue’, Poetry Review, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Summer 1991), ‘Derek Mahon Interviewed’, also review of Mahon, Heaney, Longley, et al.; Rhinoceros, 3 [n.d.], Translations: an interview with Derek Mahon, also Carson, Ginsberg, Holub.
Book titles to 1994: Beyond Howth Head (Dublin: Dolmen; London: OUP1972), 16pp. [0 19 647583 X]; Lives (London: OUP 1972) [[19 211816 1]; The Snow Party (London: OUP 1975) [0 19 211850 1]; Light and Music (Ulsterman Publ. 1977), 23pp.; Selected Poems 1962-1978 (London: OUP 1979) [0 19211 897 8]; Courtyards in Delft (Dublin: Gallery Press 1981) 0 90401 119 4]; The Hunt by Night (London: OUP 1982; N. Carolina: Wake Forest UP 1983) [0 19211 953 2]; Kensington Notebook (Anvil Poetry Press 1984) [0 85646 129 6]; Antarctica (Dublin: Gallery Press 1985) [0 90401 182 8]; Selected Poems (Dublin: Gallery Press/NY: Viking 1991; rep. Gallery; Penguin Internat. Poets 1993) [1-85235-062-8; 0-670-83575-7; and [0-14-058663-6]; The Yaddo Letter (Gallery Press Books) 15pp. [1-85235-083-0]; The Chimeras [after de Nerval] (Dublin: Gallery Press 1982), 20pp. [0 904011 31 3].
Early publications incl. ‘Late Night Walk’ [poem], in Dublin Magazine (Summer 1965); ‘Two Poems', in Dublin Magazine, (Spring 1966), p.68 [“Spring Letter in Winter”; and “Recalling Aran”: ‘I clutch the memory still, and I / Have measured everything with it since’]; also in this issue, “Canadian Pacific”, a poem on emigrants; Poems, “April on Toronto Island”, and “Parapeople”, in The Dublin Magazine, Vol. 6 No. 2 (Summer 1967), p.18.
A Misconception: Derek Mahon has written to The Irish Times correcting Fintan O’Toole who - writing on Heaney’s Nobel - relates that Mahon, Longley and others ‘began writing’ in Philip Hobsbaum’s poetry seminar in QUB; Mahon and Longley ‘began writing’ with Alec Reid, the ‘late great’ teacher at TCD [and founder of Icarus]; ‘These things are more complicated than they seem.’ (dated Fitzwilliam [Sq.], 12 Oct. 1995.) Seamus Heaney was arguably responsible for the misconception in answering a question from Seamus Deane, he said: ‘I think there is a recognisable group in a literary sense. This would include Simmons, Longley, Mahon, Muldoon, and others; […] I’m talking of a certain literary style which arose from the “well made poem” cult in English writing in the late fifties and sixties. Though harking to different writers all of us in this group were harking to writers from the English cultural background. In that sense, there is a kind of tightmouthedness which might be considered “Northern” by many in the South, but which is really the result of a particular literary apprenticeship.’ (Interview with Seamus Deane, ‘’Unhappy and At Home’, in The Crane Bag, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1977, pp.61-72.)
What are friends for?, Longley cajoled by Derek Mahon into repeating Moderatorship Exams [TCD Mod.] when he walked out in a ‘brain storm’. See ‘The Empty Holes of Spring: Some Reminiscences of Trinity & Two Poems Addressed to Derek Mahon’, in Irish University Review, 24, 1 (Spring / Summer 1994), pp.52-57.
War memorial: Note that the statue in Portstewart is the subject of ‘In Memoriam’ by Heaney (‘the loyal, fallen names on the embossed plaque’), as well as poems by Simmons, Mahon and Andrew Waterman.
Fado Yaddo: The Yaddo Letter (1992) is associated with Yaddo, the writers’ residence established by Spencer Trask and his wife Katrina , herself a poet, in Saratoga, NY State, presum. visited by Mahon.
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)