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The Berlin Wall Cafe
This was the collection with which Durcan broke through to the huge and appreciative audience he enjoys today. In the first part are poems of great satirical comedy and also of great passion and indignation, and in the second part, poems about the break-up of a marriage so intense they would hurt if they weren't also possessed of the healing gifts of truthfulness and humour. In The Berlin Wall Café Durcan has located that space between the walls and barriers societies and individuals erect - a no-man's-land of the free imagination where we meet as the vulnerable and comical human beings we are. It contains some of his very best work.
- GenresPoetryIrish Literature
80 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 2, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 1, 2019
Closing out the year 2018 with the wonderful poetry of Paul Durcan. I liked that Irish voice from the very first pages - candid, direct, even jaunty. Poems like "The Haulier's Wife" and "High-Speed Car Wash" and "Bewley's Oriental Cafe" have a beautiful sparkle about them, but soon enough Durcan moves on to the inexhaustible topic of Catholic hypocrisy on sexual matters. These are subtle, sarcastic poems, some written at the height of the bitter abortion debates of the 1980s. Thrown into the mix is "The Feast of St Bridget", a gut punch of a poem that addresses the relentless blood-letting of the Troubles. (Who knows, this stuff could become relevant again post-Brexit.)
The second half contains the confessional soul of this volume. In a series of plangent poems, Durcan carries out a sustained post-mortem on the corpse of his 15-year marriage that expired when his wife walked out on him. He is honest to the point of painfulness here, full of self-knowledge and self-reproach. There's dazzlers aplenty, and it's hard to choose from among them - but titles like "Hymn to a Broken Marriage" and "At the Funeral of the Marriage" give some hint of what lies within. That inscrutable immanence which for me is the truest mark of poetry, that spirit is present here in spades.
If I was forced to choose just one, I'd probably go with "The Turkish Carpet", but seriously these are all brilliant poems, love lyrics to stand the test of time. Here for instance is the poet agonistes:
The Turkish Carpet
No man could have been more unfaithful
To his wife than me;
Scarcely a day passed
That I was not unfaithful to her.
I would be in the living room ostensibly reading or writing
When she’d come home from work unexpectedly early
And, popping her head round the door, find me wrapped round
A figure of despair.
It would not have been too bad if I’d been wrapped round
Another woman—that would have been an infidelity of a kind
With which my wife could have coped.
What she could not cope with, try as she did,
Was the infidelity of unhope,
The personal betrayal of universal despair.
When my wife called to me from the living-room door
Tremblingly ajar, with her head peering round it—
The paintwork studded with headwounds and knuckleprints—
Called to me across the red, red grass of home—
The Turkish Carpet—
Which her gay mother had given us as a wedding present
(And on which our children had so often played
Dolls’ houses on their hands and knees
And headstands and cartwheels and dances,
And on which we ourselves had so often made love),
I clutched my despair to my breast
And with brutality kissed it - Sweet Despair -
Staring red-eyed down at The Turkish Carpet.
Oh my dear husband, will you not be faithful to me?
Have I not given you hope all the days of my life?
PS A major problem was printing mistakes (lots of missing to's), fatal in a book of poetry and totally unexpected considering not just the vintage but also the venerable publisher.
PPS Here is a less charitable take from Alan Dent. I wonder what he would make of someone like Wendy Cope or Hugo Williams! http://www.pennilesspress.co.uk/poetr...
The second half contains the confessional soul of this volume. In a series of plangent poems, Durcan carries out a sustained post-mortem on the corpse of his 15-year marriage that expired when his wife walked out on him. He is honest to the point of painfulness here, full of self-knowledge and self-reproach. There's dazzlers aplenty, and it's hard to choose from among them - but titles like "Hymn to a Broken Marriage" and "At the Funeral of the Marriage" give some hint of what lies within. That inscrutable immanence which for me is the truest mark of poetry, that spirit is present here in spades.
If I was forced to choose just one, I'd probably go with "The Turkish Carpet", but seriously these are all brilliant poems, love lyrics to stand the test of time. Here for instance is the poet agonistes:
The Turkish Carpet
No man could have been more unfaithful
To his wife than me;
Scarcely a day passed
That I was not unfaithful to her.
I would be in the living room ostensibly reading or writing
When she’d come home from work unexpectedly early
And, popping her head round the door, find me wrapped round
A figure of despair.
It would not have been too bad if I’d been wrapped round
Another woman—that would have been an infidelity of a kind
With which my wife could have coped.
What she could not cope with, try as she did,
Was the infidelity of unhope,
The personal betrayal of universal despair.
When my wife called to me from the living-room door
Tremblingly ajar, with her head peering round it—
The paintwork studded with headwounds and knuckleprints—
Called to me across the red, red grass of home—
The Turkish Carpet—
Which her gay mother had given us as a wedding present
(And on which our children had so often played
Dolls’ houses on their hands and knees
And headstands and cartwheels and dances,
And on which we ourselves had so often made love),
I clutched my despair to my breast
And with brutality kissed it - Sweet Despair -
Staring red-eyed down at The Turkish Carpet.
Oh my dear husband, will you not be faithful to me?
Have I not given you hope all the days of my life?
PS A major problem was printing mistakes (lots of missing to's), fatal in a book of poetry and totally unexpected considering not just the vintage but also the venerable publisher.
PPS Here is a less charitable take from Alan Dent. I wonder what he would make of someone like Wendy Cope or Hugo Williams! http://www.pennilesspress.co.uk/poetr...
December 5, 2018
There's a superb 21 year old Irish pot still whiskey; Redbreast - warm, fruity, sweet with a faint metallic hint..and a luxuriously smooth finish that lingers beautifully. I get the same experience reading Paul Durcan; his humour, humanity and deep care for the spirit and soul shines through.
The suburban unloved sexless wife dreaming of city passion..("I whispered, miraculous, our night will come"). An omnipresent (catholic) guilt materialising as two watching nuns at a car wash..or a schoolboy homosexual crush.. Satires on church values and post modern subway visions. There's a tender, heartbreaking hymn to a failing marriage, reflections of late 60s cold water London, art, and first and lasting love ("once we were Berlin..you and I").
Uisge beatha..water of life.. you will wish to return to this
The suburban unloved sexless wife dreaming of city passion..("I whispered, miraculous, our night will come"). An omnipresent (catholic) guilt materialising as two watching nuns at a car wash..or a schoolboy homosexual crush.. Satires on church values and post modern subway visions. There's a tender, heartbreaking hymn to a failing marriage, reflections of late 60s cold water London, art, and first and lasting love ("once we were Berlin..you and I").
Uisge beatha..water of life.. you will wish to return to this
January 5, 2023
mauvais
May 20, 2024
Libraries are an interesting experience.
Sometimes you stumble upon the wonders of the world – in the same pile that I put this, I also have Toni Morrison, Bertrand Russell, Federico Garcia Lorca, Miroslav Holub, and Bohumil Hrabal.
But yeah, I also have this here. Safe to say I missed.
This man, rest assured, is a bit of a freak in the modern internet-y sense. This becomes evident by the seventh poem, which is the last of a trilogy of poems called "The Man with Five Penises", "I Was a Twelve-Year-Old Homosexual", and last but not least, "The Man Who Thought He Was Miss Havisham". Sure, argue for avant-garde and his eccentric naming style and all that jazz, but the subject matter is just as horny or nasty in the worst ways.
A lot of literature is about intent, I feel like, and whether you can convince your reader that you are making your work with the right intention. This leaves you with works like "American Psycho" – i.e., you can get away with being nasty as long as there is some inherent intent behind it.
And these poems didn't convince me, instead, they made me cringe.
Oh well. Onto Morrison, now.
Sometimes you stumble upon the wonders of the world – in the same pile that I put this, I also have Toni Morrison, Bertrand Russell, Federico Garcia Lorca, Miroslav Holub, and Bohumil Hrabal.
But yeah, I also have this here. Safe to say I missed.
This man, rest assured, is a bit of a freak in the modern internet-y sense. This becomes evident by the seventh poem, which is the last of a trilogy of poems called "The Man with Five Penises", "I Was a Twelve-Year-Old Homosexual", and last but not least, "The Man Who Thought He Was Miss Havisham". Sure, argue for avant-garde and his eccentric naming style and all that jazz, but the subject matter is just as horny or nasty in the worst ways.
A lot of literature is about intent, I feel like, and whether you can convince your reader that you are making your work with the right intention. This leaves you with works like "American Psycho" – i.e., you can get away with being nasty as long as there is some inherent intent behind it.
And these poems didn't convince me, instead, they made me cringe.
Oh well. Onto Morrison, now.
August 22, 2007
Great postmodern Irish poetry.
January 15, 2013
Hilarious in its dry absurdity
July 30, 2023
The name and design didn't look like much, but I ended up really enjoying it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews