Image Not Available

Brian Coffey

Dublin, Ireland, 1905 - 1993, England

BiographyBiographical Note

Born at Dun Laoghaire, just outside Dublin, Ireland, in 1905, Brian Coffey took degrees in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry at University College Dublin. While at college, he met the poet Denis Devlin, and in 1930 they co-authored their first book, Poems. From 1930 to '33 he engaged in research studies in Physical Chemistry, gradually developing an interest in "the philosopical problems which arise out of any fundamental research." Continued dialogues with Devlin and with poet Thomas McGreevy.

In 1933 Three Poems was published by Jeanette Monnier in Paris. Yuki-Hira, which was published as a Christmas greeting card, won the approval of Æ and Yeats. Until 1936 he studied, largely under Jacques Maritain, at the Institut Catholique de Paris. Meanwhile, he met Samuel Beckett in London in the summer of '34, and began to contribute literary and philosophical reviews to The Criterion.

After a brief return to Dublin, Coffey returned to Paris in '37 to work on his doctoral thesis in Philosophy. His Third Person was published by George Reavey's Europa Press in '38, the year in which he married. At this time also occurred the most notable of his meetings with James Joyce, at the hospital bed of Samuel Beckett who had been stabbed in a street incident. Having visited Dublin on holiday in 1939, he was unable to return to Paris because of the outbreak of war.

From '39 to '47 he was in England, working in banks and schools. In 1947 he received his Doctorate in Paris, and was appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy at St. Louis University, Missouri, with particular concern for higher degree work in Philosophy of Science and Mathematical Logic. In 1952 he resigned from St Louis on a matter of academic principle, and with his family returned to England, where he taught school mathematics in London.

Between '61 and '65, Nine-A Musing, Missouri Sequence, Four Poems, and Mindful of You appeared in University Review under the editorship of Lorna Reynolds. He also edited Denis Devlin's Collected Poems for a special 1963 issue of University Review, issued in book form by Dolmen Press in the following year. In '65 his translation of Mallarmé's Coup de Dés appeared from Dolmen as Dice Thrown Never Will Annul Chance.

Having attended printing classes, he acquired a small printing press, and began to issue small editions of poetry, with attention to the graphic and typographical qualities of the volumes. Among the books issued by his Advent Books were his own Monster (1966), The Time, The Place (1969), Village in the Mountain (translated from the French of Gaston Bonheur, 1970), Bridget Ann (1972), and Abecedarian (1974). He edited Devlin's The Heavenly Foreigner for Dolmen in '67.

From 1970 a correspondence sprang up between him and Michael Smith, and Coffey began to issue his work through New Writers' Press, and its journal, The Lace Curtain. In 1971 a broadsheet of his work was issued as first in the Versheet series, edited by Trevor Joyce, and his Selected Poems were edited by Michael Smith as a Zozimus Edition. In 1972 he retired from reaching and soon after moved to Southampton.

In 1975, a special edition of Irish University Review, edited by Maurice Harmon, with Biographical Note and Introductory Essay by James Mays, made available Advent, Versions (from the French), and Leo. Chanterelles, Short Poems 1971-1983, issued by Trevor Joyce's Melmoth Press in Cork in 1985, was the last volume of Brian Coffey's poetry published in his lifetime. Brian Coffey died in England in 1995. Poems and Versions, 1929-1990 was published by Dedalus press in Dublin in 1991.

http://www.soundeye.org/briancoffey/index.htm

Person TypeIndividual

Terms