Me and Prof/Poet Iggy McGovern in the old Schrodinger lecture hall of the physics building at Trinity College.
Libby and I enjoyed a privileged easygoing tour of a few inner sanctums of Trinity College (founded 1592 with the mission of opposing Irish popery), guided by a physics professor emeritus with a key, a Catholic gent from the north coast of Ulster named Ignatius McGovern. Iggy had an office adjoining the only Irishman to win a Nobel Prize in physics, Ernest T.S. Walton (won in 1951 for work at Cambridge in the Thirties with Lord Rutherford in splitting the atom, proving Einstein’s E=MC squared). Ireland has one Nobel in physics, but four in literature: Yeats, Shaw, Beckett and Seamus Heaney. (These four were the answer to one of the questions in the pop quiz poet Nessa O’Mahony gave us after her whistle-stop tour of Irish lit at the Writers Centre. Nessa set up our meeting with Iggy at Trinity.)
So lit hovers here. It splits the atom, turning hydrogen into helium. Every other man and woman on the street seems to be a poet, and is not embarrassed to say so (a cultural difference with Americans). Our tour guide on Friday, Brian, is a plumber. . .and a poet. The jovial man Nessa ran into on Lombard Street during that tour. . . another poet. Even the president of Ireland, who will open the Hewitt festival in Amagh later this month. . . a poet.
Prof/poet Iggy McGovern
And Iggy, the physics professor. . .a poet, with three volumes and an anthology publish, all brilliantly braided around themes of science. Iggy’s poems are like Updike’s science poems, and have won critical acclaim. He and Nessa and their dozens of writing friends create quite a vibrant community here. Two years ago, at the Writing Center where we have been meeting, they held a reading of their own works, given 20 minutes each, that lasted from 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. the next morning. It won a Guinness Book of World Records designation.
I feel safe here, knowing poets outnumber police.
— Doug Cumming
from “The Dance Half Done,” by Mary Ann Larkin
a girl’s red hair
falling from the turret
The island itself suspended
in a primal sac of light
fed by a dark cord from within the bog
Poets send their words into the mist. . .
Yes indeed, Doug, we’re receiving your Armagh dazzling reports. We worry that Libby might fall in love with Iggy.the physics poet. Keep it coming, while we’re at Kanuga the next few days.
The only writing better than yours is the letter we got today from Sarah. She’s bought a fishing
pole for Tate ! Love from Mama and Daddy
Ah yes, Patrick Kavanagh commented that the standing army of Irish poets never fell beneath 20,000 in number! That’s a lovely reflection on your weekend, Doug. I’m very glad you feel safe here.