Derek Mahon Quotes

6 Sourced Quotes

Even now there are places where a thought might grow—
Peruvian mines, worked out and abandoned
To a slow clock of condensation,
An echo trapped for ever, and a flutter
Of wildflowers in the lift-shaft…
And in a disused shed in Co. Wexford.

Derek Mahon

I lived there as a boy and know the coal Glittering in its shed, late-afternoon Lambency informing the deal table, The ceiling cradled in a radiant spoon. I must be lying low in a room there, A strange child with a taste for verse, While my hard-nosed companions dream of fire And sword upon parched veldt and fields of rain-swept gorse.

Derek Mahon

It's practically my subject, my theme: solitude and community; the weirdness and terrors of solitude: the stifling and consolations of community. Also, the consolations of solitude.

Derek Mahon

Somewhere beyond the scorched gable end and the burnt-out buses
there is a poet indulging
his wretched rage for order.

Derek Mahon

'I am just going outside and may be some time.'
The others nod, pretending not to know.
At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime.

Derek Mahon

And in a disused shed in Co. Wexford,
Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel,
Among the bathtubs and the washbasins
A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole.

Derek Mahon

Derek Mahon

Derek Mahon

Creative Commons

Born: November 23, 1941

Died: October 1, 2020 (aged 78)

Bio: Derek Mahon was a Northern Irish poet. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Known for:

The Hudson letter (1995)
New Collected Poems (2011)
Echo's Grove: Translations (2013)
An Autumn Wind (2010)
The yellow book (1997)

Derek Mahon on Wikipedia

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