Rudi Holzapfel

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Rudi Holzapfel

Rudolf Patrick (Rudi) Holzapfel, born in Paris, France, on December 11, 1938, died February 6, 2005 in Bonn, Germany was an Irish poet and teacher.

His father, Rudolf Melander Holzapfel (1900-1982), was a Shakespeare scholar, expert on Old Master paintings, and art dealer. His mother, Mona Trew Holzapfel (1914-1998), was an original member of the renowned Bluebell Girls at the Folies Bergère. The Parisian dance troupe, founded in 1932 by the Dublin born Margaret Kelly (1910-2004), continues to perform elaborate shows at the Lido de Paris. The family relocated to America, living in California between 1946 to 1956, where Rudi Holzapfel was graduated from Santa Barbara Catholic High School. From 1956 to 1970, Holzapfel worked various jobs in England and Ireland, and studied - attaining a M. Litt. with his thesis "Irish Literary Periodicals from 1900 to the Present Day" (1964) - at Trinity College, Dublin, where he edited Icarus. It was during these years that Holzapfel began to identify with Ireland and the cause of Irish nationalism; he has said he would like to be considered a true inheritor of the spiritual legacy of the Gaelic Bards. He began a lifelong study and appreciation of James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849), the greatest Irish poet before Yeats. In 1969, Holzapfel published James Clarence Mangan: A Checklist of Printed and Other Sources (Dublin: Scepter).

From 1970 to the late 1980s, Holzapfel lived in Germany, teaching English and Literature. Holzapfel has published more than twenty-five books of poetry, some under his own imprint, Sunburst Press (Blackrock, County Dublin). An early book of poetry, Cast a Cold Eye, was written with Brendan Kennelly (Dolmen Press, 1959). Holzapfel has published with other Irish authors, including Oliver Snoddy and John Farrell, and his work has been anthologized in the Penguin Book of Irish Verse and Modern Irish Poets. With a circle of other Mangan scholars, including Jacques Chuto, Peter Van de Kamp, Peter MacMahon, and Ellen Shannon-Mangan, Holzapfel has edited selections of Mangan's prose and poems for the Irish Academic Press. Rudi Holzapfel died in Bonn, Germany, on 6th February 2005. His grave is to be found at the Poppelsdorfer Friedhof. His final book of Sonnets, "A Tiger Says His Prayers", will be published posthumously.

[edit] Works

Cast a Cold Eye, 1959, with Brendan Kennelly
Romances [by "rooan hurkey"], 1960, Sunburst Press
The Rain, the Moon, 1961, with Brendan Kennelly
The Dark About Our Loves, 1962, with Brendan Kennelly
Poems: Green Townlands (Leeds), 1963, with Brendan Kennelly
Transubstantiations, 1963
The Leprechaun [by "R. Patrick Ward"], 1963
Why Hitler is in Heaven (satirical ballad), 1964
Nollaig by Rudi Holzappel [sic] and Oliver Snoddy, 1964
Translations From The English, 1965, The Museum Bookshop, Dublin
The Rebel Bloom, Leeds, 1967
For Love of Ireland (Broadsheet with 9 poems), [the author], Leeds, 1967
No Road beyond Vallombrosa, 1968
Parasites Lost, (Rudi Patrick Sebastian Holzapfel and John Joseph Conleth Farrell), 1970, Privately Printed, Cork
Soledades, n.d., [1974], Sunburst Press
Whom a Dream Hath Possessed, 1975, Sunburst Press
A Smile Dies, 1978, Sunburst Press
Repeat after me [with Hermann Brunken], 1980, Woodway Press, Euskirchen
Poems Written Swiftly, 1982, Sunburst Press
Buckshot (Aphorisms), 1983
Turning and Manipulation, 1986, Sunburst Press
Ask Silence Why, 1961-1982, selected poems edited by Ellen Shannon-Mangan, Dublin, 1987, Beaver Row Press
The Light of Loss, December 1987, Sunburst Press
And Other Poems, 1987, Pioneer Printing, New York
White Alligators, 1991, Sunburst Press
For Ronnie, 1993 (single leaf - to be read at the graveside)
An Cheapach, 1993, Sunburst Press
Dark Harvest, 1997, Sunburst Press
Sonnets, 2001, Sunburst Press
The Thieves of Dream, 2003, Sunburst Press
A Tiger Says His Prayers, 2006, Sunburst Press