Withdrawal back to Earth: Derek Mahon’s Gaian Vision

Abstract

In the present essay, Derek Mahon’s last four collections, from Life on Earth (2008) all the way to Washing Up (2020), are analysed in the context of ecology. I argue here that Mahon’s increased attention to man-caused environmental destruction is predicated on a withdrawal from the world of profit-obsessed capitalism in favour of a silent contemplation of nature, which Mahon evokes through the figure of Gaia. Relying on Bruno Latour’s revision of James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, I show that Mahon’s late poetry represents an attempt to caringly engage the mystery and mystique of the Earth understood as a network of interrelated agents. This down-to-earth point of view, which Latour refers to as the terrestrial, characterises the Earthbound: the people who see the environment as an infinitely complex, material realm in which humanity is one subject among many. And it is the terrestrial vantage of the Earthbound perspective that Mahon evokes throughout his work, challenging the hegemony of capitalism and technology in an effort to reach the pulsating rhythms of what he calls “the still living whole”.

Keywords

• derek mahon
• bruno latour
• contemporary irish poetry
• ecocriticism
• gaia