Against the Clock

by Derek Mahon

‘You thought you’d done.’ Against the Clock, a surprising and exciting development, brings together Derek Mahon’s recent work — that is, since New Collected Poems. These new poems, some autobiographical, most written in the space of a year, concern themselves with age and time, ‘the mere fact of existence’ and the creative principle itself. One of the finest contemporary poets, the author here demonstrates once again an unfailing poetic energy — ‘still singing, still going strong.’

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Hardcover

Published August 17, 2018

About the author

Derek Mahon was born in Belfast in 1941, studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and the Sorbonne, and has held journalistic and academic appointments in London and New York. A member of Aosdána, he has received numerous awards including the Irish Academy of Letters Award, the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize, and Lannan and Guggenheim Fellowships. - See more at: http://www.gallerypress.com/authors/m...

Reviews

[Khrustalyov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Derek Mahon was always a brave man for the apocalyptic vision. His poetry is suffused with imagery and auguries of the end times. He could transpose with ease an image of the everyday from its domestic timescale to one more suited to a geologist or shaman. In this, his penultimate collection, those visions and images are as present as ever, probably even more so.

The title of this collection, Against the Clock, might suggest a poet in a rush to express his last artistic will and testament in the evening of his life. But there is no great sense of urgency in Mahon's calm and perfectly composed metres and rhymes. He seems to be just fine with his own passing, which he assumes will be imminent enough. The poems traces some details from his life, occasionally delving into childhood memories, but more often meditate on climate change and what he believes to be the twilight of that problematic notion that is civilisation.

Mahon doesn't feel much need to revolt against the evils of the world himself, but he does seem to hope that others will. But against what precisely? Here he is vague and one senses this is because he doesn't feel it's his own fight. But this is where the collection is weaker at times. While his concerns about climate change, global capitalism, Trump, and many other things are all very valid and genuine concerns, his exploration of them is superficial. To be sure, political analysis is not the point here, but the ideas become merely monoliths that animate aspects of the poems without granting much depth. Indeed, the best poems in the collection are those that avoid the direct naming of society's ills and rather evoke a loss that is both more personal and more relatable, which then often functions in an allegorical manner to wider issues of the world.

Ultimately, these are very fine poems by a wonderful and truly gifted poet. Their composition is second to none, but I did rather feel that Mahon has less to write about than he once did. Gone is the urgency of his earlier work and the probing and stretching of his imagination for another image or a deeper connection between ideas. Having read another late collection of poetry recently, Ciaran Carson's Still Life, which I absolutely loved, I did find myself wishing that Mahon had gone further and reflected more and harder. That said, the poems are often perfectly formed and some are very beautiful and interesting. It may not be a collection that I come back to, but it's one I will no doubt think about more in relation to Mahon's exceptional oeuvre.

[Vitalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t usually read poetry. I think the last time I read it was when I was in school and I had to. But this little book came as a complete surprise. I really enjoyed it. The poems are written in a clear understandable style and deal with a variety of topics, from the more mundane to the more sophisticated.

It took me a while to work my way through some odd 70 pages because here you really can’t skim read or be distracted at all. If I wasn’t fully concentrated on each little story I didn’t understand what it was about at the end.

Overall, I enjoyed the reading experience. It got me out of my comfort zone to try something new I found that I really liked Derek Mahon’s work.

[Sanjuro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mahon's new collection comes off as a bit of a surprise. He appears taken aback that, at his age, he is still producing wonderful poems, until, in one of the poems, he finds himself realizing there is no reason to be surprised. Many great artists worked well into old age. This collection is wonderful. Introspections on poetry, nature, and aging, I resonated with nearly very poem in the book.