Settings xv

  The ‘Settings’ sequence presents a chain of backdrops against which personal events and dramas were played out. Within the dynamic of Seeing Things Heaney deliberately swooped on anything that stimulated memory or association (DOD 320),  allowed himself to be transported back by the poems that ‘came on’ to the sites, moments and emotions of primary experience; his aim is to credit  ‘marvels’ that he failed to recognize first time round. Heaney conceded in conversation with DOD (322) that the death of his father, Patrick, contributed to his sinking sense of being ‘unroofed’ at this stage in his life and may have influenced the re-evaluations that Seeing Things undertakes. Heaney relives a moment of revelation. His sensitivity to the compositional […]