Kerr's Ass Comments

In the first line of the poem I mean that it is 'Kerr's big ', the title is irrelevant.

It's not 'Kerr's ', it's 'Kerr's big '.

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This poem is a rebuke to the Irish Literary Revival movement and to Romanticism generally. Brutal realism signals that PK's peasant origins are not idyllic; his inadequate farm is not an ideal subject for poetry, just the only life he had. His example shows that rural peasants are capable of poetry, which is usually crushed by their poverty, not inspired by it. It is not wonderful that he emerged from this setting - it is amazing.

An impoverished peasant has discoverd in himself the imagination for poetry, but he achieves that inspiration in spite of his crushing poverty, not because of it. This rural scene is his material not because it is appealing or romantic but because it is all he has. There is nothing attractive or beneficial in poverty and the brutal realism of this poem is part of PK's rejection of such romanticised twaddle (notably in Ireland's Literary Revival) .