Interesting point about the obliqueness, Tim. It plays out in Heaney, with
the Bog poems in _North_ preceeding a more direct or overt engagement. But
am I right in thinking that some of the poems where Heaney talks directly
about the situation were written earlier than they were published? Might be
wrong on this ...
It's always seemed to me that, for whatever reasons (generational? spending
more of his life in England than the others? Tom himself?) Tom Paulin's
work is much the most direct in dealing with the political situation.
Robin
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It is, but obliquely, like most of them. It might indeed look as if
McGuckian's work is even more oblique regarding this than the others but in
actual fact (what a lovely phrase) her work is, in my opinion, deeply
entrenched in that experience of being Catholic in the Ulster of the 60's
and 70's.
Tim A.
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