Richard Murphy (poet)
Richard Kerr Murphy (6 August 1927 – 30 January 2018) was an Anglo-Irish poet.
Biography
Early years
Murphy was born to an Anglo-Irish family at Milford House, near the
His childhood in Ireland was documented in the film The Other Irish Travellers, made by his niece Fiona Murphy.[2]
Return to Ireland
In 1954, he settled at Cleggan, on the coast of Galway. Several years later, in 1959, he purchased and renovated the Ave Maria, a traditional hooker-type boat, from Inishbofin fisherman, Michael Schofield, which he used to ferry visitors to the island.[1] He purchased Ardoileán (High Island), a small island in the vicinity of Inishbofin, in 1969.
Personal life
Murphy married
Murphy died at his Sri Lanka home on 30 January 2018.[5]
Awards and honours
- AE Memorial Award for Poetry, 1951
- First prize, Guinness Awards, 1962
- British Arts Council Award, 1967 and 1976
- Irish Arts Council Award (Marten Toonder), 1980
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, 1969
- Member of Aosdána, Ireland, 1982
- American Irish Foundation Literary Award, 1983
- Included in the Oxford Companion to English Literature, 1985
- Poetry Book Society Translation Award, London, 1989
- Society of Authors Foundation Award, 2002
Bibliography
His poetry collections include:
- The Archaeology of Love (Dolmen, 1955)
- Sailing to an Island (Faber, 1963)
- The Battle of Aughrim (Knopf and Faber, 1968; LP recording 1969)
- High Island (Faber, 1974)
- High Island: New and Selected Poems (Harper and Row, 1975)
- Selected Poems (Faber, 1979)
- The Price of Stone (Faber, 1985)
- The Price of Stone and Earlier Poems (Wake Forest University Press, Winston-Salem, 1985)
- New Selected Poems (Faber, 1989)
- The Mirror Wall (Bloodaxe Books, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1989; Wolfhound Press, Dublin, 1989, Wake Forest U. Press, 1989)
- The Mayo Anthology (editor; Mayo County Council, 1990)
- In The Heart Of The Country: Collected Poems (Oldcastle, Co. Meath, Gallery Press, 2000)
- Collected Poems (Wake Forest University Press, Winston-Salem, 2001)
- The Pleasure Ground: Poems 1952–2012 (Bloodaxe Books, Tarset, 2013; Lilliput Press, Dublin, 2012)
Memoirs:
- The Kick. A Life among Writers (Granta, 2002)
Interviews:
- Richard Murphy – reflections and stories of Seamus Heaney http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/labourday/audio/2574295/richard-murphy-reflections-and-stories-of-seamus-heaney
Radio New Zealand interview with Richard Murphy following the death of Seamus Heaney in 2013.
- Interview with Richard Murphy: An old spectator hand http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/books/2013/09/interview-with-a-poet-richard-murphy-an-old-spectator-hand/
See also
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f Welch, Robert (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. p. 383.
- ^ "The Other Irish Travellers". Storyville. BBC. 16 December 2012. Retrieved 27 March 2013.
- ISBN 0571151744.
- ^ Richard Murphy, The Kick: A Life among Writers (Granta: 2002), pg. 346.
- ^ "An Anglo-Irish poet who wrote to unite his divided self and land". The Irish Times. 31 January 2018. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
Secondary sources
- Welch, Robert (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. p. 383.
Further reading
Books
- Bowers, Neal (1982). "Richard Murphy: The Landscape of the Mind". Journal of Irish Literature 11.3: 33–42.
- Harmon, Maurice (ed.) (1978). Richard Murphy: Poet of Two Traditions. Dublin: Wolfhound.
Journal Articles
- Boey, Kim Cheng. “Sailing To An Island: Contemporary Irish Poetry visits the Western Isles.” Shima: The International Journal for Research into Island Cultures 2 (2008): 19–41.
- Dewsnap, Terence. “Richard Murphy's ‘Apologia’: The Price of Stone.” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 22 (1996): 71–86.
- Heaney, Seamus. “The Poetry of Richard Murphy.” Irish University Review 7 (1977): 18–30.
- Kiberd, Declan. “Richard Murphy and Casement’s Funeral.” Metre 10 (2001): 135–137. http://metre.ff.cuni.cz/article/618
- Kinsella, Thomas. “For Richard Murphy.” Metre 10 (2001): 128. http://metre.ff.cuni.cz/article/89
- Meihuzen, Elsa. “Richard Murphy: A life in Writing.” Literator 27 (2006): 157–174.
- Merrill, Christopher. “Nature’s Discipline.” Metre 7/8 (2000): 210–213, http://metre.ff.cuni.cz/content/13.
- Murphy, Richard and Kelly, Shirley. “The Ambition to Write a Poem is Enough to Kill It.” Books Ireland 250 (2002): 151–152.
- O’Donoghue, Bernard. “The Lost Link: Richard Murphy’s Early Poetry” Metre 10 (2001): 138–140. http://metre.ff.cuni.cz/article/92
- Sendry, Joseph. “The Poet as Builder: Richard Murphy’s “The Price of Stone”.” Irish University Review 15 (1985): 38–49.
- Siddall, Jill. “Grotesquely Free, Though Ruled By Symmetry.” Metre 10 (2001): 129–134, http://metre.ff.cuni.cz/article/96
- Swann, Joseph. “The Historian, the Critic and the Poet: A Reading of Richard Murphy’s Poetry and Some Questions of Theory.” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 16 (1990): 33–47.
- Torchiana, Donald T. “Contemporary Irish Poetry”. Chicago Review 17 (1964): 152–168.
- Young, Vernon. “The Body of Man” The Hudson Review 28 (1975–1976): 585–600.
Book Reviews
- Dawe, Gerald. “In the heart of the country: A review of Richard Murphy’s Collected Poems” The Irish Times, 10 November 2002.
- Deane, Seamus. “The Appetites of Gravity – Contemporary Irish Poetry: Wintering Out by Seamus Heaney; North by Seamus Heaney; Notes from the Land of the Dead and Other Poems by Thomas Kinsella; The Snow Party by Derek Mahon; High Island by Richard Murphy.” The Sewanee Review 84 (1976): 199–208.
- Denman, Peter. “Archaeologies of Love: New Selected Poems by Richard Murphy; The Mirror Wall by Richard Murphy.” The Poetry Ireland Review 26 (1989): 55–59.
- Greacen, Robert. “Echoes from the Big House: The Price of Stone by Richard Murphy; A Celibate Affair by Padraig J. Daly; Up the Leg of Your Jacket by Pat Ingoldsby.” Books Ireland 97 (1985): 169
- Greacen, Robert. “Conventional Rebel” Books Ireland 251 (2002): 202–204.
- Grennan, Eamon. “Riddling Free: The Price of Stone by Richard Murphy” The Poetry Ireland Review 15 (1985/1986): 10–16.
- Hammill, Brendan. “Darkness Brightening: New Selected Poems by Richard Murphy; The Mirror Wall by Richard Murphy; Selected: Poems by Eavan Boland; Witch in the Bushes by Rita Ann Higgins; Home Movie Nights by Sara Berkeley; The Hanged Man Was Not Surrendering by Macdara Woods.” Books Ireland 142 (1990): 109
- Harmon, Maurice. “High Island by Richard Murphy; Out of My Time. Poems 1967–1974 by John Hewitt; Rhyming Weavers and Other Country Poets of Antrim and Down by John Hewitt; The Wearing of the Black. An Anthology of Contemporary Ulster Poetry by Padraic Fiacc.” Irish University Review 5 (1975): 201–202.
- Hoffman, Daniel. “Constraints and Self-Determinations: Blue Juniata: Collected Poems by Malcolm Cowley; White-Haired Lover by Karl Shapiro; The Last Day and the First by Theodore Weiss; Selected Poems by Robin Skelton; The Collected Poems of Anne Wilkinson and a Prose Memoir by Anne Wilkinson; A. J. M. Smith; The Battle of Aughrim by Richard Murphy.” Poetry 114 (1969): 335–344.
- Johnston, Fred. “Rooting out the Rural Protestant Windows by Sam Gardiner; Decoding Samara by Patrick Deeley; A Wrenboy's Carnival: Poems 1980–2000 by Gabriel Fitzmaurice; Collected Poems by Richard Murphy.” Books Ireland 236 (2000): 354–355.
- Johnstone, Robert. “Living in the Real World: West Strand Visions by James Simmons; Living Room by Andrew Waterman; High Island by Richard Murphy.” Fortnight 96 (1975): 15.
- King, Patrick. “High Island by Richard Murphy.” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 65 (1976): 80–82.
- Leddy, Michael. “Collected Poems, 1952–2000 by Richard Murphy.” World Literature Today 75 (2001): 155–156.
- Mahony, Christina Hunt. “Collected Poems 1952–2012 by Richard Murphy.” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 27/28 (2001/2002): 149–150.
- Martine, Augustine. “Island Lyrics by Kevin Faller; Sailing to an Island by Richard Murphy; Lady and Gentlemanby Richard Weber; A Garland for the Green by Ewart Milne; Esau My Kingdom for a Drinkby James Liddy; The Astronomy of Love by Jon Stallworthy; Flame in the Dark by Anthony Naumann; Verge of Eden by Mae Winkler Goodman.” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 53 (1964): 95–99.
- McDonald, Peter. “Chalk and Cheese: New Selected Poems by Richard Murphy; The Mirror Wall by Richard Murphy; Blood and Family by Thomas Kinsella.” The Irish Review 7 (1989): 92–97.
- Payne, Basil. “Special Review – New Poetry: The Battle of Aughrim by Richard Murphy; Night Crossing by Derek Mahon; Collected Poems 1932–67 by John Hewitt; The Dying Gaul by Desmond O'Grady; Driving to Biloxi by Edgar Simmons; Life Studies by Robert Lowell” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 58 (1969): 74–78.
- Reynolds, Lorna. “Sailing to an Island by Richard Murphy” University Review 3 (1964): 60–61.
- Simmons, James. “Poetry Miscellany: How to Put the Love Back into Making Love by Dagmar O'Connor; The Creationists by Andrew Elliott; Blood and Family by Thomas Kinsella; The Mirror Wall by Richard Murphy; Castle Corner by Joyce Cary.” The Linen Hall Review 6 (1989): 30–31.
- Quinn, Justin. “The Weather of Irish Poetry: Selected Poems by Ciaran Carson; The Weather in Japan by Michael Longley; Shelmalier by Medbh McGuckian; Smashing the Piano by John Montague; Collected Poems 1952–2000 by Richard Murphy; Seatown and Earlier Poems by Conor O'Callaghan” The Sewanee Review 111 (2003): 486–492.
- Skloot, Floyd. “Collected Poems 1952–2000 by Richard Murphy” Harvard Review 23 (2002):171–173.