Martial Art. Brendan Kennelly. Bloodaxe Books. UK £7.95 pb / £14.95 hb

Review by Pat Boran

(Originally published in the Irish Independent)

With a string of best-selling poetry books behind him (itself an extremely rare achievement), it might at first seem strange that Brendan Kennelly's latest publication should consist of translations of the epigrams of a Roman poet who died some 1900 years ago.

And yet Kennelly and Marcus Valerius Martialis, better known as Martial, have more than a little in common. In many ways, in fact, theirs is a match made in translators' heaven.

Like Kennelly himself, Martial (who wrote some 1600 epigrams in all) was greatly interested in the role of the writer in society: as critic, mirror, celebrant and parasite all rolled into one. But though his mission was a serious one, to oppose hypocrisy, to speak out against vanity, stupidity and greed, his poems, like Kennelly's own, were witty, passionate and sensual, and certainly did not shy away from controversy or "plain speech".

Having spent much of the past dozen or so years writing very brief poems, even though many individual collections approached novel length, Kennelly finds a variety of ways to reflect Martial's direct style, from the unexpected twist or barb of a closing line (sometimes heightened by a rhyme) to the general iconoclastic tone of Martial's pronouncements on a huge range of subjects.

And then as now, unsentimental descriptions of bodily functions serve to guarantee attention. One epigram on an acquaintance's unsavoury personal habits ends, "There's a slime and a pace for everything," with perhaps a nod in the direction of Myles' Keats and Chapman. And Yeats provides the literary backdrop for another: "Had Prattus the heaven's embroidered cloths // he'd wipe his arse with them."

If, as Kennelly suggests, contemporary Dublin and first century Rome have a lot in common, Spanish-born Martial and Kerry-born Kennelly both seem to bring a constantly fresh outsider's view to bear. And however much they might love their adoptive cities, there is at least one good reason for not simply churning out reams of pretty verse. As one two-liner succinctly puts it:

"You say my poems are ugly. I agree.
You are what I see."

Striking the right note between translation and creation, Kennelly has seldom seemed livelier or Martial more alive.

© copyright Pat Boran