Squarings xlviii

    (DODp.325) Heaney reported on a period of feverish activity as the Seeing Things collection was taking shape: I was pouncing for twelve lines on all kinds of occasions, chance sentences from my reading, chance sightings of dictionary entries, such as ( ) ‘offing’.  The final Squaring should be read as a complement to the previous piece in which ‘offing’ occurs for the first time. In Squarings xlvii Heaney signifies that his poetic radar is in constant scanning mode. When he assesses it he finds that the way his mind operates is odd (strange how …) The eye-scan data entering his consciousness (sensed) from distant reaches are  déjà-vu (things foreknown) … amorphous early recollections that crystallized, random events (what’s come […]