The Candlelight Master

by Michael Longley

*AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR*

'I can't bear the thought of a world without Michael Longley, yet his poetry keeps hurtling towards that fact more and more urgently as it stretches in an unflinching way beyond comfort or certainty.' So wrote Maria Johnston, reviewing Longley's previous book Angel Hill . Yet The Candlelight Master does not only face into shadows. The title poem sums up the chiaroscuro of this collection, named after a mysterious Baroque painter. Other poems about painters - Matisse, Bonnard - imply that age makes the quest for artistic perfection all the more vital. A poem addressed to the eighth-century Japanese poet, Otomo Yakamochi, 'We gaze on our soul-landscapes / More intensely with every year.' The soul-landscape of The Candlelight Master is often a landscape of memory. But if Longley looks back over formative experiences, and over the forms he has given them, he channels memory into freshly fluid structures. His new poems about war and the Holocaust speak to our own dark times. Translation brings dead poets up to date too. The bawdy of Catullus becomes Scots 'Hochmagandy'. Yakamochi and the lyric poets of Ancient Greece find themselves at home in Longley's Carrigskeewaun.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

Published August 6, 2020

About the author

Michael Longley was a Northern Irish poet. Following his death, the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, called Longley "a peerless poet".

Reviews

[Violet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful poems - about childhood memories, endings... There is a sense of someone putting things in order before leaving, which was very sad and very moving - it reads like a farewell.

(Free ARC from Netgalley)

[T P Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful collection of relatively short poems - everything from the mock heroic to the quietly sentimental. I'm really enjoying his ongoing engagement with Homer and equally with other poets. The in memoriam poems are wistful and heartfelt as are the reflections on family. He's very much at the height of his power.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Longley is one of the foremost poets of Northern Ireland. Born in Belfast in 1939, he was a contemporary of the late Seamus Heaney, and one of the group of young (male) poets who broke through in the 1970's , part of the new wave of Ulster poets. Educated at Trinity College, where he studied Classics, he has spent his life in Belfast. He also has a cottage in Mayo, in the west of Ireland, and both locations heavily influence his poetry. He is known as perhaps the greatest living chronicler of World War I in poetry, for his Classical references in his poems, and his nature poems.

In his most recent volume, Longley has several poems with classical references and settings. His love of otters appears, influenced undoubtedly by a visit to Gavin Maxwell, on an island near the Isle of Skye, author of Ring of Bright Water. His love of birds, and flowers i evident throughout. His poem "Ors" is a tribute to the World War I poet Wilfred Owen, Longley, and his wife, the scholar Edna Longley, has written extensively on poets of this war and era. Perhaps the most poignant poem in the collection is "Flower-Names" which is his second poem about the murder of "the ice-cream man" during the Troubles.

Longley excels in writing short poets that capture the essence of their subject. He is masterful and at the same time extraordinarily gentle. A poet not to be missed.

[Ajay Sawant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely, dreamy poetry. I like modern prose poetry, particularly if it has a good narrative, which this does. There are episodes where poetry wanders into a kind of inexplicable language and phrasing but I am ok with that and like a bit of a challenge.

I really loved how the poet has included the day to day experiences in poems along with names of people which makes a very beautiful sense to the rhythmic verses.

Overall the book was a great experience

[Benjamin M · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I was in a better mood I would say that this is "classic Michael Longley, a collection that explores familiar themes using the same rich language he has developed over his distinguished career".

But honestly, and I say this as a reader of ML for the past 25 years, it now feels he is writing the same book multiple times. Disappointing.

[Kara (bookishskippy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars.

Though it was a tough read for me but i personally enjoyed some of the war topics the poet shared and will liketo share my favourite poem below:-

I am the candlelight master
striking a match in the shadows
a smoky wick then radiance
i am the candlelight master

[Malachy Moran · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic little collection. Unfortunately, I have to judge it against other Michael Longley collections and I just didn’t like it as much as A Hundred Doors for example. Still, absolutely NO ONE wrote Nature poetry like him. Truely a legend.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jesus, where has Michael Longley been my whole life? I’m in awe of how smoothly the poems transition between themes and subjects. Beautiful collection.

[Ron Bernas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Among a lot of gems is this stunner:

Birth
The cosmos-shaper has come down to earth:
Mary is counting his fingers and toes.