"Limerick's Lorca, Michael Hartnett, was a totally living presence with a terrific gift for telling the truth". Seamus Heaney's tribute was one of many at a large gathering of poets and musicians at a memorial evening for Hartnett in Dublin last night.
Hartnett, who died on October 13th aged 58, was one of Ireland's leading poets in both English and Irish, and combined his lyric gift with a satiric bite.
Among the poets who contributed to the evening were John Montague, Brendan Kennelly, Dermot Bolger, Peter Fallon, who is also Hartnett's publisher, Philip Casey, Liam O Muirthile, Paul Durcan and Ciaran Carson.
Seamus Heaney's tribute was read by the master of ceremonies for the evening, the poet and director of Poetry Ireland, Theo Dorgan, who said: "Michael Hartnett was a poet so loved and respected that there is a feeling of abandoned grief everywhere after his tragic early death."
The audience of 300 was treated to readings of a wide variety of Hartnett's poetry and translations; jokes and anecdotes were retold.
"Michael went through a fertile linguistic crucifixion," said John Montague. "He was a poet in the sense of suffering and pain, but also in comedy."
Brendan Kennelly praised the "cosmic nature and sensual particularity" of Hartnett's imagination.
"He had a psychological closeness to poets like O Bruadair, O Rathaille, who came from the broken Gaelic order and found themselves without an audience," said Peter Sirr.
Peter Fallon said that Gallery Press would go ahead with the publication of Hartnett's Collected Poems, originally planned for his 60th birthday.