Introduction

Christopher Daybell, a long time member of the Dublin Writers Workshop, died suddenly in Dublin in mid-March. He was in his early 60s, and had been a familiar face on the Dublin poetry scene for many years. He was regularly to be found on Grafton Street, reciting his poetry and engaging passers-by in animated conversation about verse. He was an active member of the DWW, always ready to give excellent feedback and constructive criticism to fellow workshop members, and to inspire others with his own elegant sonnets. A dheis a bheith ar a anam dhilis.

We shall be adding additional material on Christopher Daybell over the coming weeks.

The online version of his 1996 pamphlet, The Fourteen Line Whip, can be found here.


The Last Troubadour

In memory of Christopher Daybell

They took away your pitch
paved your stomping grounds
of Grafton Street.
No more regular routine:
Bewleys in the afternoon,
making the one cup last,
always beginning in the same way,
"Do you like poetry?"

Pamphlets under arm,
beret perched, half-rake,
half international brigade,
the side-burns vestiging
your 60s glory-days
when Bohemia stretched
down Wicklow Street
and up to the Green,
missing classes,
doodling the latest verse,
iambs elegant no matter what.

I knew you later,
a Monday night faithful
upstairs in Bowes,
seated in the same spot,
intoning rich vowels,
the languors of your loves,
the past imperfect,
the present full
of savage indignation
at Reagan or Bush,
conjuring up Rimbaud
at the drop of a hat,
flickering compassion
for a poet's plight.

If this was one of your's,
you'd say adieu now,
knowing the precise time
when a reading ends
and the audience drifts away.
The least I can do, Chris,
is take my cue
from the Master.

Nessa O'Mahony

Philokalia

(For Christopher Daybell, 1939-2000)

Should we dismiss our humblest sense,
and all we learned? Your thirst appeased,
the weight of life's first volume felt,
your hands explored the world's skin;

a blind man's attempt to read,
physician mapping the disease,
loving caress.

What lessons would they bring in time,
to unbind your wit and make it tame!
Last March, touch came to teach again,

but found that you were not the same.
Your days had been mixed joy and pain,
and now you are left to balance them,
a gifted pupil keen to learn.

Miguel deArce

^