I owe a great debt to John McGahern, (1934 – 2006) the Irish writer who hailed from County Leitrim. When I came to read him I felt immediately that heart speaks to heart. I have read the man himself, and I have read interviews that he gave about himself and his writing craft. I also collected a few of his sayings and remarks and I would like to share them with you. I find wisdom in all of them.
+ All good writing is suggestion. All bad writing is statement.
+ To be a victim is a failure of imagination. One becomes responsible for one’s own life.
+ When you understand your life’s story and its miseries, it is a liberation. You cannot write about it in a miserable way. That is no good.
+ Judgement has no place in the writer’s trade. An ounce of sympathy is worth a ton of judgement.
+ Let us make one little room an everywhere. (John Donne)
+ Focus on the local. The universal is only vagueness. You have to follow your own life.
+ I was exhausted by all that staring out of the window!
+ In order to write, you need to feel as well as think.
+ Divorce is a terrible experience – it’s almost like having a death without a body, and one has an incredible sense of personal failure. You make some sort of commitment. You have let yourself down and let somebody else down.
+There’s an enormous private zone. I think most of us inhabit private worlds that others cannot see, and that’s the world we read with, and write out of too.
+ Religion had too much power. Religion will turn to its true vocation, which is spirituality.
The homily at his funeral said:
“The whole country has come to know him through his writings.”
“Through hard work, clear thinking and deep feeling he produced works of art.”
~~~~~~~~~
The above is my little store of treasure that John McGahern gave to me. I am very happy to share it with you.
During one of our trips back to Mayo from Scotland we went to visit the grave of John McGahern. I stood there at his grave and I thanked him for all he has given to me.
Brian Fahy
16 May 21 2021
Erris Poetry 