Derek Mahon’s Geopoetic Horizons

Abstract: Derek Mahon’s poetical œuvre can be read as a critical reflection on man’s relation to Earth. This paper first examines how the basic elements of familiar landscapes (land, soil, earth, sea) interact, thus defining a poetic territory viewed from the sea as the prime element to which one inevitably returns. Then the poet’s ecological perspective is re-interpreted in wider geopoetic terms. Thirdly an analysis highlighting the vulnerability of an endangered earth yet able to draw out of its depths the energy to ceaselessly renew itself is carried out, focusing on the topos of the beach as a no man’s land of indeterminacy through which renewal is made possible and “rejectamenta” may access new horizons.