The Schoolbag

                                                                                                                    in memoriam John Hewitt An elegy in sonnet form commemorating an emblem of his Primary School days – a cherished personal possession and  a thing of quality: My handsewn leather schoolbag. Heaney builds in a tribute to a cultured Irish friend and a poignant reference to his mother and father. He addresses Hewitt not by name but by respected status (poet) at the age of forty, in mid-career, as  Dante put it in the opening line of the Inferno (you were nel mezzo del cammin) . At […]