Derek Mahon: Wave Shadow

Allusion to Classical figure Ariadne

Allusion to Classical place Atrium

Classical/post-Classical intertexts The poem is a response to the installation Wave Shadow by Irish artist Vivienne Roche (V. Roche, Wave Shadow, Dublin Dental Hospital, Trinity College, 1999). Roche's wall-mounted glass and bronze wave forms could be seen to resemble blue dolphins, as Mahon suggests. "the blue dolphins in Ariadne's bedroom" is an allusion to dolphin frescoes found at the site of Knossos, Crete (Ariadne is the daughter of the Cretan King Minos).

Note Also collected in New Collected Poems, Gallery Press, 2011, p. 305.