Exploring the Everyman

WORDSMITH Terry McDonagh.

Terry McDonagh to launch ‘unusual’ new collection in Ballina and Westport

Poet Terry McDonagh has long been a mainstay of the Irish poetry scene, and this month he will launch his latest collection, Fourth Floor Flat – 44 Cantos, with a special reading at Ballina Arts Centre on Thursday, October 11, at 7pm. The much-loved Kiltimagh poet will also launch the book in Westport, during the town’s upcoming six-day arts festival, Westival. The Westport launch takes place in The Gallery Cafe, Wine & Tapas Bar in Brewery Place on Saturday, October 27, at 6pm.
Terry McDonagh has published ten poetry collections, as well as letters, drama, prose and poetry for young people. His work has been translated into Indonesian and German, and he has read all over the world.
Published by Arlen House, the new collection is described by its author as ‘an adventure into the unknown in lots of ways’. In the introduction to the collection, we read that the protagonist is the Everyman in us who leaves his home to shape a new future, to distance himself from the familiar, the tried and tested. He finds his place, space and voice in a fourth-floor flat. From there, he grants us access to his hopes, dreams, expectations and thoughts.
The theme was triggered by the author’s interest in our relentless stream of consciousness, he explains. “I’d read somewhere that somebody had been trying to quantify the number of thoughts and images we could have or experience in a minute, a day, a week and so on. An impossible task that set me thinking and which led me to the conscious realization that thinking and time are out of our control. When our time is up, our thinking stops.
“I set out to write the story of a man living alone in a fourth floor flat – a story that came to nothing because there wasn’t a story but there was a person up there who couldn’t stop thinking about his life – past, present and future. I saw him as Everyman, one of us: laughing, crying, dreaming and longing. In a sense we all live very much alone, in a fourth floor flat, even if we share a positive existence with other.”
The process of the narrative taking shape took a while, but eventually it started to come together. “I began to realize,” Terry continues, “that verse was the perfect medium for such thoughts seeing as we think in scraps, chunks and short sentences. Even when thinking about one topic, our thoughts wander and skip about to other semi-related or unrelated matters. This was the point where the real work began. It was my first attempt at writing a whole poetry collection with a connected narrative.
“Only one person speaks throughout and he is up there in the Fourth Floor flat … all of these cantos or verses relate to this one person. I have to smile sometime when I think I see whole aspects of my own personality there on the page in front of me, but then again, I see whole chapters of other peoples’ lives there too. We are all there intertwined in the same connected narrative.”
In terms of contemporary poetry publishing, this book is something of an anomaly. With increased pressures on publishers, taking risks is something that doesn’t happen very often. Terry agrees. “I have been asked about getting an unusual collection such as this published. In many ways, it was easier because my publisher felt it was different from anything I’d written before. He felt it was an exciting collection. I can only agree. There’s lots of humour, absurd and disjointed thinking throughout on the pages and between the lines. He [the progagonist] looks back at his childhood, does therapies, talks about his chaos, tax, attitudes to a whole range of topics. There is something in there for everyone.”

Westival Walkabout
On Saturday, October 27, before the Westport launch, McDonagh will also host a free roaming open mic afternoon as part of Westport’s Westival. All are welcome to meet up with the author at 3pm at Becca’s Bakery at the bottom of Peter Street. Strolling around Westport town from there, McDonagh will read stories and poems connected to the unexpected locations as he leads you into them. Destinations will include a hardware shop, a butcher’s, a bakery, a bookshop and a street corner. Attendees are invited to bring a poem, song, dance or yarn to suit the occasion.

Terry will launch ‘Fourth Floor Flat – 44 Cantos’ at Ballina Arts Centre this Thursday, October 11, at 7pm. The launch will be followed by an open mic poetry evening. The collection will be launched again in Westport’s Gallery Cafe, Wine & Tapas Bar on Saturday, October 27, at 6pm. Admission to both launches is free. See next week’s Mayo News for more on the Westival line-up, or visit westival.ie.