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John Montague (poet)
Encyclopedia
John Montague is an Irish poet. He was born in New York
and brought up in Tyrone. He has published a number of volumes of poetry, two collections of short stories and two volumes of memoir. He is one of the best known Irish contemporary poets. In 1998 he became the first occupant of the Ireland Chair of Poetry.
, New York
, on February 28, 1929. His father, James Montague, an Ulster Catholic, from County Tyrone, had gone to America in 1925 to join his brother John. Both were sons of John Montague, who had been a Justice of the Peace
, combining his legal duties with being a schoolmaster, farmer, postmaster and director of several firms. John continued as postmaster but James became involved in the turbulent Irish Republican scene in the years after 1916, particularly complicated in areas like Fermanagh and Tyrone, on the borders of the newly divided island
. Molly (Carney) Montague joined her husband James in America in 1928, with their two elder sons. John was born on Bushwisk Avenue, St. Catherine’s Hospital, and spent his earliest years playing with his brothers in the streets of Brooklyn, putting nickels on the trolley lines, playing on a tenement roof, seeing early Mickey Mouse movies.
, where he employed his brother, James Montague did not find life in New York easy during the Depression years. So the three boys were shipped back to Ireland in 1933, the two eldest to their maternal grandmother’s house in Fintona, Co. Tyrone, where they had been born, but John was sent to his father’s ancestral home at Garvaghey
, then maintained by two spinster aunts, Brigid and Freda, who welcomed the boy of four.
From New York to a farm on the edge of the Clogher Valley in County Tyrone was a significant step backwards in time. John did all the usual farming chores. He became a normal Ulster farm child, though haunted by the disparity between what the house in Garvaghey had been, in the days of his grandfather and namesake, and the reduced present.
John went first to Garvaghey School and then to Glencull, three miles away, where he was coached by a young and ardent master. Scholarships brought him to St. Patrick's College, Armagh, the junior Diocesan Seminary and the place where his Jesuit uncle, Thomas Montague, had gone.
in 1946. He found an extraordinary contrast between the Ulster of the War Years and post-war Dublin, where the atmosphere was introverted and melancholy. Stirred by the example of other student poets (including Thomas Kinsella
) he began to publish his first poems in The Dublin Magazine
, Envoy
, and The Bell
, edited by Peadar O’Donnell. But the atmosphere in Dublin was still constrained and Montague left for Yale
on a Fullbright Fellowship in 1953.
John had already met Saul Bellow
at the Sazburg Seminar in American Studies and now he worked with Robert Penn Warren
as well as auditing the classes of several Yale critics, like Rene Wellek and W. K. Wimsatt. He extended his sense of contemporary American literature, attending Indiana Summer School of Letters where he heard Richard Wilbur, Leslie Fiedler, and John Crowe Ransom, who like the Irish poet Austin Clarke
, encouraged Montague, finding him a job at the Iowa Writers Workshop in 1954-55.
, a year of graduate school convinced Montague that he should return to Ireland. He sailed back to France that summer, to marry his first wife, Madeleine, whom he had met in Iowa, where she was also on a Fullbright; they settled in Herbert Street, Dublin, a few doors down from Brendan Behan
. Working by day at the Irish Tourist Office, Montague at last gathered his first book of poems, Poisoned Lands (1961).
That year he also moved to Paris
, to a small studio a block away from Samuel Beckett
, with whom he slowly became on good drinking terms. There, he also met another neighbour, the French poet Claude Esteban
, with whom he became friends — Montague recently translated into English and published some of his poems. A regular rhythm of publication saw his first book of stories, Death of a Chieftain (1964) after which the musical group The Chieftains
were named, his second book of poems, A Chosen Light (1967), Tides (1970), the latter both also published by Swallow in the U.S.
All during the sixties, Montague continued to work on his long poem, The Rough Field, a task that coincided with the outbreak of the Civil Rights
Movement in Northern Ireland. A Patriotic Suite appeared in 1966, Hymn to the New Omagh Road and The Bread God in 1968, and A New Siege, dedicated to Bernadette Devlin
which he read outside Armagh Jail in 1970. In 1972, the long poem was finally published by Dolmen/Oxford and Montague returned to Ireland, to live and teach in University College Cork, at the request of his friend, the composer Seán Ó Riada
, where he inspired an impressive field of young writers including Gregory O'Donoghue, Sean Dunne
, Thomas McCarthy
, William Wall
, Maurice Riordan
, Gerry Murphy
, Greg Delanty
and Theo Dorgan. In a birthday tribute for his 80th, William Wall
wrote: "It would be impossible to overestimate his influence on the young writers who went to UCC (University College Cork) at that time." The Rough Field (1972) was slowly recognized as a major achievement.
with his second wife, Evelyn Robson, Montague published an anthology, The Faber Book of Irish Verse
(1974) with a book of lyrics, A Slow Dance (1975). Recognition was now beginning to come, with the Award of the Irish American Cultural Institute in 1976, the first Marten Toonder Award in 1977, and in 1978, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award for The Great Cloak, “the best book of poetry in two years” according to the Poetry Society of Great Britain. A Guggenheim in 1979-80 enabled Montague to complete his Selected Poems (1982) and his second long poem, The Dead Kingdom (1984) both co-published by Dolmen (Ireland), Oxford (England), Wake Forest University Press (U.S.) and Exile Editions (Canada).
In 1987, Montague was awarded an honorary doctor of letters by the State University of New York at Buffalo. Governor Mario M. Cuomo presented Montague a citation in 1987 “for his outstanding literary achievements and his contributions to the people of New York.” Montague serves as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence for the New York State Writers Institute during each spring semester, teaching workshops in fiction and poetry and a class in the English Department, University at Albany.
In 1995, Montague and his second wife, Evelyn, separated, and he formed a partnership with American student Elizabeth Wassell (later to be author of The Honey Plain (1996)).
In 2000, Montague was awarded The Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize
.
In 2008 Montague published A Ball of Fire, a collection of all his fiction including the short novella The Lost Notebook.
Montague is noted for his vowel harmonies, his use of assonance and echo, and his handling of the line and line break. Montague believes that a poem appears with its own rhythm and that rhythm and line lengths should be based on living speech.
of Doctor of Letters
from the University of Ulster, Coleraine
on 29 June 2009.
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and brought up in Tyrone. He has published a number of volumes of poetry, two collections of short stories and two volumes of memoir. He is one of the best known Irish contemporary poets. In 1998 he became the first occupant of the Ireland Chair of Poetry.
Early life
John Montague was born in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, on February 28, 1929. His father, James Montague, an Ulster Catholic, from County Tyrone, had gone to America in 1925 to join his brother John. Both were sons of John Montague, who had been a Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...
, combining his legal duties with being a schoolmaster, farmer, postmaster and director of several firms. John continued as postmaster but James became involved in the turbulent Irish Republican scene in the years after 1916, particularly complicated in areas like Fermanagh and Tyrone, on the borders of the newly divided island
Partition of Ireland
The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...
. Molly (Carney) Montague joined her husband James in America in 1928, with their two elder sons. John was born on Bushwisk Avenue, St. Catherine’s Hospital, and spent his earliest years playing with his brothers in the streets of Brooklyn, putting nickels on the trolley lines, playing on a tenement roof, seeing early Mickey Mouse movies.
Return to Garvaghey
Although Uncle John ran a speakeasySpeakeasy
A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the period known as Prohibition...
, where he employed his brother, James Montague did not find life in New York easy during the Depression years. So the three boys were shipped back to Ireland in 1933, the two eldest to their maternal grandmother’s house in Fintona, Co. Tyrone, where they had been born, but John was sent to his father’s ancestral home at Garvaghey
Garvaghey
Garvaghey or Garvaghy is a hamlet in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is between Ballygawley and Omagh...
, then maintained by two spinster aunts, Brigid and Freda, who welcomed the boy of four.
From New York to a farm on the edge of the Clogher Valley in County Tyrone was a significant step backwards in time. John did all the usual farming chores. He became a normal Ulster farm child, though haunted by the disparity between what the house in Garvaghey had been, in the days of his grandfather and namesake, and the reduced present.
John went first to Garvaghey School and then to Glencull, three miles away, where he was coached by a young and ardent master. Scholarships brought him to St. Patrick's College, Armagh, the junior Diocesan Seminary and the place where his Jesuit uncle, Thomas Montague, had gone.
Education
The teacher he remembers most from Armagh was Sean O Boyle, one of the leading experts on Ulster folksong and Irish poetry. From him John imbibed, almost against his will, a strong sense of the long tradition of Irish poetry. John studied at University College DublinUniversity College Dublin
University College Dublin ) - formally known as University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's largest, and Ireland's second largest, university, with over 1,300 faculty and 17,000 students...
in 1946. He found an extraordinary contrast between the Ulster of the War Years and post-war Dublin, where the atmosphere was introverted and melancholy. Stirred by the example of other student poets (including Thomas Kinsella
Thomas Kinsella
Thomas Kinsella is an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher.-Early life and work:Kinsella was born in Lucan, County Dublin. He spent much of his childhood with relatives in rural Ireland. He was educated in the Irish language at the Model School, Inchicore and the O'Connell Christian...
) he began to publish his first poems in The Dublin Magazine
The Dublin Magazine
The Dublin Magazine was an Irish literary journal founded and edited by the poet Seamus O'Sullivan and published in Dublin by New Square Publications....
, Envoy
Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art
December 1949- July 1951. Dublin, Ireland. Editor & Founder: John RyanDuring its brief existence, Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art, published the work of a broad range of writers, Irish and others. The first to publish J. P...
, and The Bell
The Bell (magazine)
The Bell Magazine Dublin, Ireland. A monthly magazine of literature and social comment which had a seminal influence on a generation of Irish intellectuals.- History :...
, edited by Peadar O’Donnell. But the atmosphere in Dublin was still constrained and Montague left for Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
on a Fullbright Fellowship in 1953.
John had already met Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
at the Sazburg Seminar in American Studies and now he worked with Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...
as well as auditing the classes of several Yale critics, like Rene Wellek and W. K. Wimsatt. He extended his sense of contemporary American literature, attending Indiana Summer School of Letters where he heard Richard Wilbur, Leslie Fiedler, and John Crowe Ransom, who like the Irish poet Austin Clarke
Austin Clarke
Austin Ardinel Chesterfield Clarke, is a Canadian novelist, essayist and short story writer who lives in Toronto, Ontario. Born in St...
, encouraged Montague, finding him a job at the Iowa Writers Workshop in 1954-55.
Life during the 50s and 60s
From Iowa to BerkeleyUniversity of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, a year of graduate school convinced Montague that he should return to Ireland. He sailed back to France that summer, to marry his first wife, Madeleine, whom he had met in Iowa, where she was also on a Fullbright; they settled in Herbert Street, Dublin, a few doors down from Brendan Behan
Brendan Behan
Brendan Francis Behan was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both Irish and English. He was also an Irish republican and a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army.-Early life:...
. Working by day at the Irish Tourist Office, Montague at last gathered his first book of poems, Poisoned Lands (1961).
That year he also moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, to a small studio a block away from Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
, with whom he slowly became on good drinking terms. There, he also met another neighbour, the French poet Claude Esteban
Claude Esteban
Claude Esteban was a French poet.Author of a major poetic œuvre of this last half-century, Claude Esteban wrote numerous essays on art and poetry and was the French translator, inter alia, of Jorge Guillén, Octavio Paz, Borges, García Lorca, or again, Quevedo.-Biography:Of Spanish father and...
, with whom he became friends — Montague recently translated into English and published some of his poems. A regular rhythm of publication saw his first book of stories, Death of a Chieftain (1964) after which the musical group The Chieftains
The Chieftains
The Chieftains are a Grammy-winning Irish musical group founded in 1962, best known for being one of the first bands to make Irish traditional music popular around the world.-Name:...
were named, his second book of poems, A Chosen Light (1967), Tides (1970), the latter both also published by Swallow in the U.S.
All during the sixties, Montague continued to work on his long poem, The Rough Field, a task that coincided with the outbreak of the Civil Rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
Movement in Northern Ireland. A Patriotic Suite appeared in 1966, Hymn to the New Omagh Road and The Bread God in 1968, and A New Siege, dedicated to Bernadette Devlin
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey
Josephine Bernadette Devlin McAliskey , also known as Bernadette Devlin and Bernadette McAliskey, is a socialist republican political activist...
which he read outside Armagh Jail in 1970. In 1972, the long poem was finally published by Dolmen/Oxford and Montague returned to Ireland, to live and teach in University College Cork, at the request of his friend, the composer Seán Ó Riada
Seán Ó Riada
Seán Ó Riada , was a composer and perhaps the single most influential figure in the revival of Irish traditional music during the 1960s...
, where he inspired an impressive field of young writers including Gregory O'Donoghue, Sean Dunne
Seán Dunne (poet)
- Career :Dunne edited several anthologies, beginning with "The Poets of Munster" and finishing with the "Ireland Anthology" which was completed posthumously by George O'Brien and his partner Trish Edelstein. He released 3 collections of poems...
, Thomas McCarthy
Thomas McCarthy (poet)
Thomas McCarthy is an Irish poet, novelist, and critic, born in Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, Ireland. He attended University College Cork where he was part of a resurgence of literary activity under the inspiration of John Montague...
, William Wall
William Wall
William "Bill" Wall is an Irish novelist, poet and short story writer. He was born in Cork City in 1955, but grew up in the coastal village of Whitegate. He received his secondary education at the Christian Brothers School in Midleton. He progressed to University College Cork where he graduated in...
, Maurice Riordan
Maurice Riordan
Maurice Riordan is an Irish poet, translator, and editor. Born in Lisgoold, County Cork, Riordan has published three collections of poetry: A Word from the Loki , a largely London-based collection which was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for the T. S...
, Gerry Murphy
Gerry Murphy
Gerry Murphy was the Director of Football Development at Huddersfield Town between 1988 and 2009...
, Greg Delanty
Greg Delanty
Greg Delanty is an Irish poet. He is artist-in-residence at St. Michael's College, and current President of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers....
and Theo Dorgan. In a birthday tribute for his 80th, William Wall
William Wall
William "Bill" Wall is an Irish novelist, poet and short story writer. He was born in Cork City in 1955, but grew up in the coastal village of Whitegate. He received his secondary education at the Christian Brothers School in Midleton. He progressed to University College Cork where he graduated in...
wrote: "It would be impossible to overestimate his influence on the young writers who went to UCC (University College Cork) at that time." The Rough Field (1972) was slowly recognized as a major achievement.
Since 1974
Settled in CorkCork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
with his second wife, Evelyn Robson, Montague published an anthology, The Faber Book of Irish Verse
Faber Book of Irish Verse
The Faber Book of Irish Verse was a poetry anthology edited by John Montague and first published in 1974 by Faber and Faber. Recognised as an important collection, it has been described as 'the only general anthology of Irish verse in the past 30 years that has a claim to be a work of art in itself...
(1974) with a book of lyrics, A Slow Dance (1975). Recognition was now beginning to come, with the Award of the Irish American Cultural Institute in 1976, the first Marten Toonder Award in 1977, and in 1978, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award for The Great Cloak, “the best book of poetry in two years” according to the Poetry Society of Great Britain. A Guggenheim in 1979-80 enabled Montague to complete his Selected Poems (1982) and his second long poem, The Dead Kingdom (1984) both co-published by Dolmen (Ireland), Oxford (England), Wake Forest University Press (U.S.) and Exile Editions (Canada).
In 1987, Montague was awarded an honorary doctor of letters by the State University of New York at Buffalo. Governor Mario M. Cuomo presented Montague a citation in 1987 “for his outstanding literary achievements and his contributions to the people of New York.” Montague serves as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence for the New York State Writers Institute during each spring semester, teaching workshops in fiction and poetry and a class in the English Department, University at Albany.
In 1995, Montague and his second wife, Evelyn, separated, and he formed a partnership with American student Elizabeth Wassell (later to be author of The Honey Plain (1996)).
In 2000, Montague was awarded The Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize
The Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize
The Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize is a biennial award that is offered alternately to enable an Australian poet to visit Ireland and to facilitate the visit of an Irish poet to Melbourne...
.
In 2008 Montague published A Ball of Fire, a collection of all his fiction including the short novella The Lost Notebook.
Style
Montague's poems chart boyhood, schooldays, love and relationships. Family and personal history and Ireland's history are also prominent themes in his poetry.Montague is noted for his vowel harmonies, his use of assonance and echo, and his handling of the line and line break. Montague believes that a poem appears with its own rhythm and that rhythm and line lengths should be based on living speech.
Awards
John Montague was awarded an Honorary DegreeHonorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
of Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters is a university academic degree, often a higher doctorate which is frequently awarded as an honorary degree in recognition of outstanding scholarship or other merits.-Commonwealth:...
from the University of Ulster, Coleraine
University of Ulster
The University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...
on 29 June 2009.
Collections
- A Ball of Fire ISBN 978-1-905483-45-7
- Poisoned Lands ISBN 0-85105-319-X
- Rough Field ISBN 1-930630-21-2 ISBN 1-85235-045-8 ISBN 1-85235-044-X
- Time in Armagh ISBN 1-85235-112-8
- Tides ISBN 0-85105-177-4
Further reading
- Val Nolan, ‘John Montague: Learning to be Humble’, Southword, Issue 14, pp. 127–132 (Cork: June 2008); Interview with the poet about his life and career
- Thomas McCarthy, 'Poet of Exile And Return', Birthday tribute to John Montague, Irish Times
External links
- Wake Forest University Press North American publisher of Montague
- John Montague fonds at University of Victoria, Special Collections