A POEM WITH RINSE-AID IN IT

The story goes that at the launch of the first issue of Poetry Ireland Magazine, back in the early ‘60s, the young Michael Hartnett criticized Patrick Kavanagh for using the word garage in a poem, and Kavanagh became very angry, upending a table of drinks. What would Michael have thought of a poem with the word Rinse-Aid in it?

A POEM WITH RINSE-AID IN IT

(Hartnett vs Kavanagh,1962)

Once, there was a table of drinks upset

in Bailey’s Pub in Dublin over the use 

of garage in a poem. It’s not the kind 

of word that should be used in poems, said 

young Hartnett to his senior, whereupon

Kavanagh hefted a literary round.

Note that I used the past tense of the verb

heft just then. It’s a word which gained prestige

from Seamus Heaney’s frequent use of it, 

a word that would grace any poem, and does 

many, by Heany-echoing poets, since.

There are other Heaney-words that start with H –

hunker for example, and hoke – they, too,

are replicated for poetic kudos. 

I wonder what would Michael Hartnett think,

God rest his soul, seeing the word Rinse-Aid

in a poem? How many bottles of Rinse-Aid

would fit in that County Monaghan garage?

Could all the Rinse-Aid in the country rinse

the garage out of Patrick Kavanagh’s poem?

I hunker when I’ve filled the dishwasher

and hoke about in the space under the sink

groping at bottles, looking for Rinse-Aid.

© CIARAN O'DRISCOLL 2019