Devotion

by Mícheál McCann

At the heart of Mícheál McCann’s eagerly awaited first collection is ‘Keen for A— ’, a re-imagining of Eileen O’Connell’s heartrending Lament for Art O’Leary. In Devotion the poet transports the original tragedy in time and place. Echoing the 18th-century Irish, it lives now in contemporary Belfast where a young man’s male lover is murdered. The sequence charts from premonition, in filmic scenes, the first encounter, the news, denial, rage (and an oath of vengeance) to the funeral and A—’s family’s chilling silence afterwards. Other poems range from memories of childhood and relationships with parents to the author’s own imaginary child. There is a wry poem on animal homosexuality, others on sea swimming and the satisfactions of a shared meal, while an elegiac poem recreates the final joy of an RUC Constable in a gay bar before he’s shot by a member of the INLA.

For all the solemnity of its subject matter love poems leaven its atmosphere as Mícheál McCann’s debut glows with the sense of someone who knows he has ‘discovered the name of his destination’.

Genres: Poetry, LGBT

92 pages, Paperback

Published May 17, 2024

Reviews

[Leah Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I expected no less from Mícheál but this book was so devastatingly beautiful, it’s the poetry book equivalent of a “no-skip album”. The middle section “Keen For A—“ absolutely took my breath away but the whole book is a triumph!! Great day to be gay and Irish

[Ella Barron Carton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful and gentle collection. The caoineadh struck me straight in the heart and I know I will be taking it with me for a long time hereafter.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I persist / regardless, against all advice.” This is the end of the first poem, ‘Song’, in Mícheál McCann’s first full-length collection of poetry, Devotion. I feel extraordinarily honoured to have read such a refined, future-important book so far ahead of its publication in May, and yet I’ve been wondering how I could’ve lived the next few months without it. At the heart of the book is the tremendous long-poem / sequence, ‘Keen for A—’, which adapts Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill’s famous eighteenth century lament (which many like myself will recognise from one of the most important books of the twenty-first century, Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost In The Throat). In McCann’s hands, the poem becomes a queer meditation on love, visibility, family, and justice — or rather the impossibility of justice under heteronormativity. There are so many staggering revelations in McCann’s ‘Keen’, not least about grief, which is captured so horribly palpably in the juxtaposition of “this vanishing act” with the imminence of a resurrection: “And with all this said, all of it, / I cannot abandon the sense / that you will beat me home, / feet up, sun lightening your eyes.” Its sensitivities stun but its rage is what really moved me, I felt it on an atomic level, how easy it is to hate the world that hates us. Yet the collection is propelled endlessly by love and goodness. Poems like ‘Auden’s You’, which is not the only one to usurp time in the name of love: “The clock stopped going / as the morning approached. / Time damned its water flow.” And in the book’s titular poem, “Love and death are our inexhaustible topics. / The poets are unanimous. I pity them, though, never / knowing how your cheeks shine when you really laugh.” Without hyperbole, Devotion heralds McCann’s arrival as a poet of inevitable significance.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

In an article for The Irish Times, McCann says his book asks, "What does it mean to love someone today? To be a gay person? To be Irish?" He goes on to say, "The visual settings of many of the poems are domestic, and render portraits of a queer domestic space (in Ireland) as a space of interest." These concerns are evident in a collection of poems marked by its lyricism, empathy, and tenderness. McCann revitalises the tradition of the lyric love poem, reflecting not just on romantic love, but on parental love, friendship, and love for non-human animals. McCann's poems are meticulously structured, which gives them energy and power. 'Devotion' also contains a response to the famous "Keen for Art Uí Laoghaire" by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill -- in this case, reimagined in a modern Irish setting, and describing a relationship between two men. By repositioning Ní Chonaill's poem, McCann gives the reader a sense of the universality of love and grief, while also exploring the particularly of a relationship that ended due to a violent crime. McCann's poems are marked by his fierce attention to everyday spaces, and by his sinuous, agile language. His is clearly an important voice in Irish poetry.

[Isidora Durán · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the style I tend to gravitate towards, but one of my many New Year’s resolutions was to read more Irish poets. This is beautiful, and although the tone doesn’t always seem sure of itself, flitting between something more formal and prosaic to conversational language, there are many single image gems that I will return to. The reconciling of sectarianism with queerness is resonant. My favourite is ‘Líadan Attests her Love’.

[bam hurger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cried.

9/10