And be shy of your breasts in the presence of death,
Say that you look more beautiful in linen
Wearing white petticoats, the bow on your bodice
A butterfly attending the embroidered flowers.
THESE words are taken from one of Michael Longley’s favourite poems, The Linen Industry. As well as commenting upon the transformative powers of married love and the fragility of life, Longley describes it as “partly a love poem to Ulster”.
“Those final lines please me,” the 85-year-old reflects as he recites them to me in the front room of his south Belfast home.
“I don’t sit down and memorise them, they’re just there. And they wouldn’t be there if they weren’t any good,” he says with pride.
“A true poem is inexhaustible. There are poems by Yeats, Thomas and my friends [Derek] Mahon and [Seamus] Heaney that I read again and again.”
These include Tall Nettles by First World War poet Edward Thomas and Seamus Heaney’s Mossbawn: Sunlight, which he describes as “so simple and so profound”.
“The test of a poem by somebody else is jealousy. There’s a gland to the left of your Adam’s apple which throbs visibly when reading a very good poem.”
I suggest that Heaney was jealous of his writing, too.
“Oh, I know he was,” he replies, with a twinkle in his eye.
Longley published his first poetry collection, No Continuing City, in 1969. His most recent, Ash Keys: New Selected Poems, draws upon his 13 collections showing the breadth of his talent.
And yet, the man regarded as Northern Ireland’s most eminent craftsman of words refuses to refer to himself as a poet.
“You mustn’t take yourself or your work too seriously. If someone describes themselves as a poet, they’re probably not a poet, because that’s like calling yourself a saint,” he says.
The actual source of most of his poems remains “somewhat mysterious” to Longley: “The man who writes the poems is somewhat of a stranger to me. I don’t really know him all that well.”
He adds that he believes poetry cannot be “an act of will” and that you must “wait for the poems to come”.
“There was a whole decade when the poems didn’t come, and I feared I was finished. Edna said, ‘The muse will come back’. It did eventually and I’m still writing quite fluently,” he enthuses.
Dr Edna Longley, his wife of almost 60 years, is a renowned Irish literary poetry critic and commentator. She is also a constant source of inspiration to her husband.
“I’ve learned a great deal of what I know from listening to intelligent women and Edna is one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met,” he explains. “Everything she says is interesting, and I hang on to her every word.”
Describing a successful poem as “a perfect marriage of meaning and melody,” it is Edna who is the first reader of all his work.
“If she gives it the thumbs up, you don’t care too much what anybody else thinks,” he chuckles.
It was Edna who suggested the title Ash Keys - originally published in The Echo Gate (1979) – for his latest book.
“It’s one of her favourites. It’s really a poem about writing poetry in disguise as a nature poem.”
Love of nature, people and place shine out in much of his work, and Longley points out that the first poem in Ash Keys, Epithalamion, is a love poem to Edna.
“Its last line - ‘The sky when king and queen are gone’ - being a reference to Edna and I standing at the corner of Dawson Street, waiting patiently for Éamon de Valera and US President John F Kennedy to ‘whizz past’ during his 1963 presidential visit.”
Of course, Longley’s poetry hasn’t shied away from the darker subjects of war, violence and death.
“I believe there’s no future for poetry, or for any art, unless it’s willing to look into the abyss,” he explains.
“For me, that’s been the First World War, which was a foolish needless sacrifice of tens of thousands of young men, and the Holocaust, which I still can’t understand.
“That concern was brought to the front of my mind by a neighbour, Helen Lewis, who survived Auschwitz and Terezin, which inspired his famous poem of the same name.”
His “obsession with World War One” comes from his father’s military service. At just 20 years old he was made captain in charge of a company known as the “Longley babies” during the Great War.
The man who writes the poems is somewhat of a stranger to me. I don’t really know him all that well
— Michael Longley
Proud of his father’s achievements, including the Military Cross, he expresses regret that he did not talk more with his father about his wartime experiences, saying the poems he has written about them are “making up for the conversations we should have had”.
I ask Longley whether the current conflicts in Ukraine and involving Israel impact him and compel him to pen a response: “Yes. In a way, I’m writing about that when I’m writing about the First World War.”
Longley is perhaps best known for his powerful and pained commentary on Northern Ireland’s troubled past, in poems such as The Troubles and Ceasefire.
Reflecting on our past conflict still makes him angry.
“I lost friends in the Troubles, as most of us did. And to be frank, I never quite understood it. I don’t give a f**k whether someone is a Catholic or a Protestant.”
A proud father of three, and a grandfather of seven, it seems fitting that we are talking in a room with walls covered by beautiful paintings by his daughter Sarah Longley.
“We have done about six little collectors’ books together and collaborated on our yearly Christmas card.”
Longley is grateful for the blessings of family, friendships and contemporaries.
“I don’t know of a more poetry-friendly place than Belfast. And now within the last decade, the poets have been joined by playwrights, short story writers and novelists. It’s wonderful.
“I think it’s a coincidence of talents. No poet is a solo flight. I miss terribly Mahon, Heaney and [Ciaran] Carson. They are three of the greatest minds of our time, whom have left us great immortal poems.”
And how would he like to be remembered himself?
“Well, that’s for other people to decide. I would like to be kept in print and I would like a few of my poems to mean a lot to some,” he nods humbly.
Longley has won all the major poetry accolades - the Whitbread, the T.S. Eliot prize, the Hawthornden and The Feltrinelli, but it’s the heartfelt connection his poetry has with readers that is more meaningful to him.
He admits he gets “the odd fan letter” from those grateful that his poetry has resonated deeply with them.
These include that of Rosetta Larmour, mother of murdered Constable John Larmour, of whom Longley penned the poem The Ice-Cream Man.
“That brought a tear to my eye. It mattered more to me than all the good reviews,” he reflects.
In 2021 Queen’s University Belfast opened The Longley Room and announced a £400,000 poetry scholarship fund in recognition of Michael Longley and wife Edna.
It’s an honour he’s proud of and when it comes to passing on advice to the next generation of poets he tells them to be, like him, observant of the world around them: “Keep your eyes and ears open, attempt different poetic forms and read the great poets of the past, as well as challenging contemporary poets.”
He takes his own advice when it comes to reading, finding fulfilment from immersing himself in the works of both canonical and contemporary literary figures.
The breadth of Longley’s reading interests, spanning different eras and genres is clear to be seen in his overflowing bookcase and books stacked up on his floors and staircase.
“I tell my children, reading books makes up for only having the one life.
“I enjoy the great war poets. Oh and I’ve just bought the new Sally Rooney. She’s very good on sex,” he laughs.
Despite his accumulating years, Longley is already thinking ahead to his next poetry collection.
“I’ve written two short sequences recently, Six Flowers and War Birds. And I’ve got the title - The Night Before Spring. The night, of course, is death,” he ponders, but not mournfully.
Relishing to get back to his writing desk and appreciating the beauty of life, a smiling Longley tells me during our departing conversation on his doorstep, looking upwards to a nearby tree, that his “heart stops” on hearing a bird sing.
Ash Keys: New Selected Poems, with foreword by Paul Muldoon, is published by Cape Poetry.
Michael Longley will be in conversation with Nick Laird at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast on November 6 as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival. The event is sold out but for the full festival programme visit Belfastinternationalartsfestival.com.
