Brian Coffey facts for kids
Brian Coffey (born June 8, 1905 – died April 14, 1995) was an Irish poet and publisher. He wrote many poems, and his work was special because it mixed his Catholic faith with his knowledge of science and philosophy. He was also interested in a French art movement called surrealism.
Two of his long poems, Advent (published in 1975) and Death of Hektor (published in 1979), are seen as very important in Irish modernist poetry. Modernist poetry is a style that often breaks traditional rules and tries new ways of writing. Brian Coffey also ran his own small publishing company called Advent Books in the 1960s and 1970s.
Growing Up and Early Poems
Brian Coffey was born in Dublin, Ireland, in a place called Dún Laoghaire. He went to boarding school at Mount St Benedict in Gorey, County Wexford, from 1917 to 1919. After that, he attended Clongowes Wood College in Clane, County Kildare, from 1919 to 1922. This was the same school that famous writer James Joyce had attended.
In 1923, Brian went to France to study Classical Studies, which means he learned about ancient Greek and Roman languages and cultures.
His father, Denis J. Coffey, was a professor of anatomy (the study of the body's structure). He also became the first president of University College Dublin (UCD) from 1908 to 1940. Brian Coffey followed in his father's footsteps and went to UCD in 1924. There, he earned advanced degrees in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. He was also a talented boxer and represented his college in boxing matches!
While still at UCD, Brian Coffey started writing poetry. He published his first poems in the college's student newspaper, The National Student, using the pen name Coeuvre. These early poems were influenced by French Symbolist poetry and by another famous poet, T. S. Eliot. Around this time, Coffey met Denis Devlin, and they published a book of poems together called Poems in 1930. Both Coffey and Devlin also enjoyed acting in French plays at college.
Life in Paris
In the early 1930s, Brian Coffey moved to Paris, France. There, he studied Physical Chemistry with Jean Baptiste Perrin, a scientist who had won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1926. Coffey finished these studies in 1933. That same year, his book Three Poems was printed in Paris. He also published a poem card called Yuki Hira, which was admired by well-known Irish writers like George William Russell and William Butler Yeats.
In Paris, Coffey became friends with other Irish writers, including Thomas MacGreevy and Samuel Beckett. In 1934, Samuel Beckett wrote an essay called Recent Irish Poetry. In it, he said that Coffey and Devlin were creating a "living poetic" style in Ireland.
In 1934, Coffey began studying with the famous French philosopher Jacques Maritain at the Institut Catholique de Paris. He completed his studies there in 1936. After that, he lived in London for a while. He wrote reviews and a poem for Criterion magazine, which was edited by T. S. Eliot. When he visited Dublin, he talked about literature on RTÉ radio and published poems in a magazine called Ireland Today.
He went back to Paris in 1937 to work on his PhD. His research was about the idea of order in the writings of Thomas Aquinas, a famous philosopher. In 1938, Coffey's second book of poetry, Third Person, was published. He also helped translate poems for a book called Thorns of Thunder (1936), which was the first English collection of poems by the French poet Paul Éluard. The poems from this time showed Coffey finding his own unique voice. However, Third Person was his last poetry book for 25 years.
Later Life and Work
In 1952, Brian Coffey returned to live in London. Later, in 1973, he moved to Southampton. He started publishing his poetry and translations again, especially translations of French poetry. His first new work in English was Missouri Sequence, which appeared in the University Review in 1962. This poem talks about being far from home, memories of his parents, and the early birth of a child. It's written in a clear, easy-to-understand way, which makes it one of his most popular poems.
For about ten years, he regularly published in the University Review (which later became the Irish University Review). This led to a special issue of the magazine in 1975 that focused on his work. It included an introduction, some of his translations from French, a funny poem called Leo, and his long poem Advent. Advent is a deep poem about death, written after his son died in a motorcycle accident. The poem has seven parts, which Coffey said were based on the canonical hours of the Catholic Church (special times for prayer).
Another important poem from this time was Death of Hektor. This poem uses the ancient Greek story of Troy and the hero Hektor to explore ideas about war and the people who suffer because of it. Both Advent and Death of Hektor were published by the Menard Press. Coffey also helped edit the Collected Poems of his friend Denis Devlin.
Brian Coffey also started his own publishing company, Advent Books. He published his own work and helped younger writers he wanted to support. He learned how to print books himself and created many original works, including interesting pictures based on the plays of his old friend Samuel Beckett. His love for art also led him to try concrete poetry, which is poetry where the way the words are arranged on the page is part of the poem's meaning. A good example is his 1966 book Monster: A Concrete Poem.
Younger Irish poets like Michael Smith and Trevor Joyce really admired Coffey's work. They published his poems, stories, and translations in their journal The Lace Curtain. They also published his Selected Poems (1971) through their company, New Writers Press. This book was very important in helping Brian Coffey become known as a leading Irish modernist poet.
In 1991, a major collection of his work called Poems and Versions 1929–1990 was published, along with his translations Poems from Mallarmé. These books helped confirm his place as one of Ireland's most important modernist writers. Brian Coffey passed away at the age of 89 and was buried in Southampton, England.
See also
- Tomás Ó Cobhthaigh, poet, died 1474
- Aeneas Coffey, 1780–1852
