Brendan Kennelly

Brendan Kennelly (born 17 April 1936) is an Irish poet and novelist. Now retired from teaching, he was Professor of Modern Literature at Trinity College, Dublin until 2005. Since his retirement he has been titled "Professor Emeritus" by Trinity College. He is father to one daughter, the late Doodle Kennelly and is also grandfather to Doodle's three daughters: Meg, Hannah and Grace.
Early life.
Kennelly was born in Ballylongford, County Kerry, on 17 April 1936 and was educated at the inter-denominational St. Ita's College, Tarbert, County Kerry, and at Trinity College, where he edited "Icarus". Kennelly graduated from Trinity and wrote his PhD thesis there. He also studied at Leeds University. Brendan was married to Margaret (Peggy) O'Brien for 18 years, Peggy was Brendan's colleague in the English Department at Trinity College. They lived together in Sandymount, Dublin, with daughter Doodle for 12 years before separating. Brendan and Peggy remain friends and Peggy is now remarried. Peggy is a published poet and Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Poetry.
Kennelly's poetry can be scabrous, down-to-earth and colloquial. He avoids intellectual pretension and literary posturing, and his attitude to poetic language could be summed up in the title of one of his epic poems, "Poetry my Arse". Another long (400-page) epic poem, "The Book of Judas", published in 1991, topped the Irish best-seller list.
A prolific and fluent writer, he has more than fifty books of poetry to his credit, including "My Dark Fathers" (1964), "Collection One: Getting Up Early" (1966), "Good Souls to Survive" (1967), "Dream of a Black Fox" (1968), "Love Cry" (1972), "The Voices" (1973), "Shelley in Dublin" (1974), "A Kind of Trust" (1975), "Islandman" (1977), "A Small Light" (1979) and "The House That Jack Didn't Build" (1982).
Kennelly has edited several other anthologies, including "Between Innocence and Peace: Favourite Poems of Ireland" (1993), "Ireland's Women: Writings Past and Present, with Katie Donovan and A. Norman Jeffares" (1994), and "Dublines," with Katie Donovan (1995).
He has also written two novels, "The Crooked Cross" (1963) and "The Florentines" (1967), and three plays in a Greek Trilogy, "Antigone", "Medea" and "The Trojan Women".
Kennelly is an Irish language (Gaelic) speaker, and has translated Irish poems in "A Drinking Cup" (1970) and "Mary" (Dublin 1987). A selection of his collected translations was published as "Love of Ireland: Poems from the Irish" (1989).
Style.
Language is important in Kennelly's work – in particular the vernacular of the small and isolated communities in North Kerry where he grew up, and of the Dublin streets and pubs where he became both roamer and raconteur for many years. Kennelly's language is also grounded in the Irish-language poetic tradition, oral and written, which can be both satirical and salacious in its approach to human follies.
Regarding the oral tradition, Kennelly is a great reciter of verse with tremendous command and the rare ability to recall extended poems by memory, both his own work and others, and recite them on call verbatim.
Kennelly has commented on his own use of language: "Poetry is an attempt to cut through the effects of deadening familiarity and repeated, mechanical usage in order to unleash that profound vitality, to reveal that inner sparkle. In the beginning was the Word. In the end will be the Word ... language is a human miracle always in danger of drowning in a sea of familiarity."