Two Quick Notes

Heaney addresses twin obituaries to an anonymous someone who played a fundamental role in his development. Retrospective clues identifying  his father Patrick Heaney will appear in the next collection, Seeing Things:  ’a solid man, a pillar to himself and to his trade …can sprout wings at the ankle …fleet as the god of fair days ‘ (Crossings xxvii) and, reflecting on the house Patrick designed and built at The Wood, plain, big, straight, ordinary…a paradigm of rigour and correction, rebuke to fanciness and shrine to limit (Crossings xxxiii), finally the quoted judge who suffered no fool gladly (The Ash Plant). I Heaney tells of his long-standing closeness (old…friend) to an uncompromising figure (hard) – someone who at times actively looked […]