Poets Per Capita

Are there more poets per capita in Northern Ireland than in most other places? I'm not sure. But the density of quality poetry produced here is impressive, to say the least. Sure, there are the Ulster Renaissance types everybody knows: Heaney, Longley, Mahon, Muldoon, McGuckian. But also an older generation or two who ought to have a wider readership. John Hewitt, for instance, whose house I passed on the way from Dublin to Belfast today. Or Louis MacNeice, for whose "Snow" alone he ought to be more famous (and whose Autumn Journal is one of my favorite poems of the late 1930s). But MacNeice said awful things about Ireland, and I'm having a good time here, so instead I'll give you a sample of Ciaran Carson (whose middle name I would tell you if I knew it, but, alas, I do not), and since I'm about to go enjoy a pint at the Crown, here's a pub poem:

Last Orders

Squeeze the buzzer on the steel mesh gate like a trigger, but
It's someone else who has you in their sights. Click. It opens.
Like electronic
Russian roulette, since you never know for sure who's who, or what
You're walking into. I, for instance, could be anybody. Though I'm told
Taig's written on my face. See me, and would I trust appearances?

Inside, a sudden lull. The barman lolls his head at us. We order Harp --
Seems safe enough, everybody drinks it. As someone looks
daggers at us
From the Bushmills mirror, a penny drops: how simple it would
be for someone
Like ourselves to walk in and blow the whole place, and
ourselves, to Kingdom Come.