Sir, - Thank you for your coverage (February 23rd) of the lecture on poetry from the south-east of Ireland which I delivered on February 17th in Kilkenny. However, the article's heading, "South-east poets give optimistic view of Celtic Tiger", seriously distorts the position of these poets as represented in my lecture.
I argued there that a primary concern of Thomas McCarthy, Mark Roper, Kerry Hardie and Michael Coady is the geography of the individual's response to place. I suggested that this inside-out approach to the question of who we are, offers a means of optimism for those critics who warn that in the Ireland of the Celtic Tiger, the basis of our identity is being dissolved beneath our feet.
The work of these poets does not propose that the fear which the economic boom engenders about national spiritual bankruptcy is groundless. Rather, it suggests that there are resources available within the realm of individual response to an immediate local world, which counterbalance that bankruptcy. Poets from the south-east and beyond are using these resources and making them visible to all of us. - Yours, etc.,
C. Clutterbuck, Department of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4.