Rudi Holzapfel letters to Ellen Shannon-Mangan

The Irish poet Rudolf Patrick (Rudi) Holzapfel was born in Paris, France, on December 11, 1938. His father, Rudolf Melander Holzapfel (1900-1982), was a Shakespeare scholar, expert on Old Master paintings, and art dealer. His mother, Mona Trew Holzapfel, was an original member of the renowned "Bluebell Girls," the Parisian dance troupe founded in 1932 that 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 graduated from Santa Barbara Catholic High School. From 1956 to 1970, Holzapfel worked various jobs in England and Ireland, and studied at Trinity College in Dublin. 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.

Holzapfel, Rudi. Ask Silence Why: Selected Poems, 1961-1982 / edited by Ellen Shannon-Mangan. Dublin: Beaver Row Press, 1987.Holzapfel, Rudolf Melander. The autobiography of Rudolf Melander Holzapfel / edited by his son. [Dublin]: Sunburst Press, c1992.

Ellen Shannon-Mangan was married to Richard Mangan (now deceased), a descendent of the Irish poet James Clarence Mangan. In the course of pursuing her own studies and preparing a biography of Mangan, she was referred by Brendan Kennelly, Professor of Modern Literature at Trinity College, Dublin, to his old friend, fellow poet and Mangan admirer Rudi Holzapfel. Shannon-Mangan first met Holzapfel in the early 1980s when she and her husband traveled from their home in Oregon to Bonn, West Germany, where Holzapfel was living. Through correspondence and visits, Shannon-Mangan and Holzapfel shared interests and developed editorial projects related to Mangan.

In addition, Shannon-Mangan edited a collection of Holzapfel's poetry, Ask Silence Why: Selected Poems (1961-1982) and represented his work with American publishers. She is the author of James Clarence Mangan: a Biography (1996) and co-editor, with Holzapfel, Jacques Chuto, Peter Van de Kamp, and Peter MacMahon, of the Irish Academic Press Series The Collected Works of James Clarence Mangan, including Prose, 1832-1882; Poems, 1818-1912; and Selected Poems.

Shannon-Mangan, Ellen. James Clarence Mangan: A Biography. Dublin and Portland, Oregon: Irish Academic Press, 1996.