Seamus Heaney by Seamus Heaney

Bodies and Souls

Heaney captures moments from his life as a boarder at St Columb’s college. 1 In the Afterlife When the school day came to an end for a bored schoolboy exiled far from home young Heaney entered a kind of afterlife. Wiling away long hours before lights-out, was not much of a life for him. Were he to awaken on the other side of death, the scene might bear a depressing resemblance to St Columb’s. The central character is ‘real name’ (Jim Logue, the caretaker), initially engaged in the fortnightly routine of sweeping up hair off that classroom floor behind the school barber (an actual person contracted to the school). With Heaney in tow (falling into step) Logue follows his upper-floor […]

Bann Valley Eclogue

Reading Virgil’s Eclogue IV (of 42 BC) Heaney spotted correspondences with the contemporary situation in Ireland 2000 years on. The poetic charge he felt resulted in an eclogue of his own, transposing the original into a contemporary Irish setting and focussing on the elusiveness of renewal. Whilst the original Virgil eclogues tend to feature humble rural folk depressed or repressed by injustices heaped on them from above and hoping for bards to make their public case, the Heaney version brings together two wise and learned men – POET (resembling Heaney himself) and VIRGIL. Their exchanges are conducted with due respect and deference. Heaney defines the seriousness of his eclogue using Virgil’s opening lines: Sicelides Musae, paulo malora canamus (‘Sicilian Muses, […]

Afterthoughts

Heaney an extraordinary man in ordinary clothing Heaney the cordon-bleu cook Heaney the agent of change Heaney the orchestral composer Heaney the word painter Heaney the meticulous craftsman (including phonetic information) Thumbnails of poems (in alphabetical order) Stylistic devices an extraordinary man in ordinary clothes Poets are a breed apart! Unlike ordinary mortals such as you and I their consciousness is constantly tuned into things that give off a poetic charge and their vocation compels them to pounce on such sudden, involuntary moments before they fade away. Poets are constantly on the qui-vive; they have a way of recording these unpredictable, involuntary instances – poets are never far away from composition mode which transforms electrical impulse into verse; […]

Ballynahinch Lake

for Eamon Grennan Godi. Fanciullo mio, stato soave, Stagion lieta è cotesta. The epigraph is from Leopardi’s ‘II Sabato del Villaggio’ (‘Saturday in the Village’): ‘Enjoy the sweet hour, my child, in this pleasant and delightful season’. Heaney spent countless hours behind the wheel of his car drinking in the surroundings. The sight and sounds of something that carried poetic charge might bring his journey to a temporary halt. Ballynahinch Lake is much more, however, than the richly textured description of water-birds taking to the air within an idyllic frame – it dips into the private subtleties of husband-wife relationship … of things said and unsaid … routines that may not always suit both parties. By poem’s end one wonders whether […]

Foreword

Seeing Things published by Faber & Faber in 2001 is Seamus Heaney’s tenth collection. He is in his early sixties. The book demonstrates the erudition and vitality of his earlier poems and adds a ‘literary’ strand and an elegiac strand that break the Heaney mould. Electric Light and subsequent collections over more than half a century confirm Heaney’s place at the very top of the premier league of 20th century poets writing in English and provide a hugely rich legacy and archive following the poet’s relatively sudden untimely death in August 2013 at the age of 74. The textual commentaries that follow seek to tease out what Heaney’s poems are intimating in Electric Light. It must be appreciated that Heaney […]

Audenesque

in memory of Joseph Brodsky Heaney pens a last message of respect, admiration and affection for a deceased friend and fellow Nobel Laureate whose ‘exhilarating’ company he had much enjoyed. He summed up his feelings in a posthumous tribute published in the New York Times: I first met him passing through London in 1972 on the second leg of his journey from dissidence in Russia to exile in the United States; he was a verifying presence. His mixture of brilliance and sweetness, of the highest standards and the most refreshing common sense, never failed to be both fortifying and endearing. Every encounter with him constituted a renewal of belief in the possibilities of poetry. In ‘Finders Keepers Heaney said that […]

Arion

from the Russian of Alexander Pushkin Read ‘Arion’, think ‘Heaney’ suggests Helen Vendler In her review of Electric Light (Irish Times of Mon, Jun 3, 2019) under the heading ‘Heaney the Survivor’: ‘Heaney’s poetry begins, now, to exhibit many elegies both for personal friends and for poets who have been important to him … Marking their disappearance, Heaney, the survivor, adapts a Pushkin’s poem in which Arion (saved from shipwreck by a dolphin) speaks a postlude’. Heaney presents his own version of the Russian poem. All is proceeding smoothly – a vessel riding high, every crewman on board fully occupied (all hard at it), some up aloft adjusting for greater speed (up tightening sail), others sweating at the oars (the […]

At Toomebridge

Heaney recounts the exhilaration he experiences on his return to the point where the Lower Bann river exits Lough Neagh and continues its journey northwards to the sea. Interviewed by Daljit Nagra in March 2001 under the heading ‘Fine Lines’, Heaney defined Toomebridge as ‘a radiant place with the’ radiant shine’ of first recall – a ‘terrific entrancement for me’ seen from the bridge as I was on the bus – an appropriate poem with which to start the collection; a miniature version of the collection as a whole ‘the poem is doing what the book is about … it pays attention, gives full acknowledgement to the usual, the data, what happens … it allows the shine of your own […]

Foreword (Wintering Out)

Heaney – selective biography Heaney in 1972 The call of ‘pastures new’ Ulster before Berkeley – Heaney biding his time The Berkeley experience – Heaney on the move Post Berkeley – Heaney burning bridges Tipping point ‘Wintering Out’- publication and reactions ‘Wintering Out’ – the title Style … ‘inward broody’ The ‘languagey’ poems The religious divide of Heaney’s upbringing Sectarianism – the difficulties of remaining neutral place and rôle of the poet in times of social distress Finding ‘common ground’– the Glob effect Irish ‘underlay’ – identities and territory, history, tongue Historical links: pre-Christian > colonial > post-colonial> contemporary symbols , spirits , parables, the elements Wintering Out the poems: individual commentaries and notes Afterthoughts Finding the blend; the poet’s […]

Fodder

‘What the Californian distance did was to lead me back into the Irish memory bank’ (DOD142). The first poem of Wintering Out introduces a series of pieces in the collection that identify closely with beloved locations by featuring the sounds of and associations with Irish/ Ulster diction and pronunciation. Heaney refers to them as ‘languagey poems’ (DOD126). Recalled at a restless moment and from a huge distance, Mossbawn is a sacrosanct place of Heaney’s childhood, a blessed legacy ‘ forever part of his inner landscape’ (HV 21). The poet spotlights an age-old, traditional feed for livestock as it winters out: Fodder (required when, seasonally, grass has ceased to grow and provide renewable natural pasture); he identifies with the phonetic version […]

Bog Oak

‘What the Californian distance did was to lead me back into the Irish memory bank’ (DOD142). Ulster dialect and pronunciation are woven into the first piece (‘Fodder’) as a shared inheritance of Irish people whatever their religious denomination. The image of a recycled Bog Oak, preserved by the peat bogs that surrounded Heaney’s childhood home, is presented as further ‘common ground’; the poet adds Irish identity, climate and history to the mix. The peat bogs, ‘sacred places’ (MP94) for Heaney, stored and preserved what was deposited in them also acting, layer by layer, as a historical archive. Heaney acknowledges the aged Bog Oak as a usable wood retrieved from the peat and source of recycling income. Sight of it transports […]

Anahorish

The first of three place-name poems: ‘Anahorish’, ‘Broagh’ and ‘Toome’ are existing communities within a 2 or 3 mile radius of Mossbawn where the poet’s happy childhood unfolded. Heaney attended Anahorish Primary School and featured the townland in a number of pieces. Enigmatically Anahorish does not appear by name on current Ordnance Survey maps yet its identity is memorialized by Heaney and jealously guarded by its inhabitants. Heaney sings the music of a name that became part of his essence (Anahorish), celebrating a topographical inheritance founded in the distant past and shared by people of all persuasions. He offers an anglicized transliteration of the Gaelic etymology: My ‘place of clear water’. Anahorish is Heaney’s Garden of Eden, his pastoral paradise, […]

Servant Boy

Heaney’s poem, based on the experiences of a childhood neighbour Ned Thompson, makes a powerful statement about Irish dispossession at the hands of anglo-scottish invaders and their descendants. The deteriorating circumstances he witnessed upon his return from his sabbatical year at Berkeley served only to confirm the seemingly unchanging fate of the Catholic minority. Heaney portrays a male servant of indeterminate age, averse to his subservient status (boy) left with little choice but to turn the other cheek and bide his time in the hope of improved circumstances: wintering out/ the back-end of a bad year. The young male goes about his menial routine (swinging a hurricane-lamp through some outhouse): an unskilled hand like countless others over the centuries (a […]

The Last Mummer

Heaney revealed that his ‘last mummer is, like the servant boy (of the previous poem), an alter ego of sorts, He, too, is ‘resentful and impenitent’(DOD130). The narrative interlaces themes of dispossession, endangered tradition, ‘progress’, superstition, remnants of Scottish New Year ‘good luck’ custom and symbols of Catholic communion set against a landscape literally as old as the hills of Ireland. The poem moves from action to elegy. If Heaney’s servant boy symbol of Irish subjugation was disgruntled but placid by nature, his last mummer, portrayed as the last survivor of an age-old Irish mystery-play tradition, is driven beyond ‘patience’ and ‘counsel’. I The representative of Old Ireland has come prepared for direct action: a stone in his pocket,/ an […]

Land

Heaney’s 3-poem sequence approaches the title from different angles: a man steeped in country practices announces his intention to go; the effigy he intends to leave behind will transmit the messages of home to him; creatures natural to the Irish landscape-home are under threat from lurking, man-made dangers. A disastrous future for Ulster is on the cards. Land is all-encompassing: the ground beneath the poet’s feet; the extent of the family farm; his Ulster homeland; Irish territory. I The voice is that of a countryman by instinct (first person and barely anonymous) setting out his routines: measuring his personal domain in age-old units (I stepped it, perch by perch); separating and selecting natural growth that will serve many purposes (Unbraiding […]

Gifts of Rain

Widely regarded as one of the collection’s major pieces, the title introduces the element at the source of all life (Water is certainly a ‘shape-changer’ MP99), dominant feature of Irish climate, determinant of landscape and symbol of cleansing and renewal. Heaney wrote the poem in Berkeley: images, descriptions and associations stem from his Irish memory bank. Allegory is in-built: Heaney’s Ulster is under threat of political and social inundation and he is in ‘inward, broody’ mode. He returns to his home-ground especially the cherished Moyola river of his neighbourhood . I Prolonged rainfall associated with bounty (the Gifts of rain) becomes a recipe for flooding: whether full spate (Cloudburst) or continuous steady downpour now for days. Enter a living creature […]

Toome

Heaney’s second of three ingenious place-name poems contains a phonetic energy that identifies the poet’s specific Ulster background and alludes to the ‘Irish underlay’ of place, time and language that he explores in Wintering Out. As Heaney points out in the notes that follow the ‘languagey’ poems bridged the gap between his working language (English) and his Ulster Irish origins. The poet rehearses the pronunciation of a village that lies within an emotional stone’s throw of his childhood home at Mossbawn: Toome. He describes in words the oral gymnastics required to produce the genuine Ulster sound: My mouth holds round/ the soft blasting (the burst of compressed air from the throat released by consonant plosive [t]). Distance lends enchantment: Toome, […]

Broagh

Wintering Out features three ingenious place-name poems; this third piece provides the phonetic evidence that distinguishes those with a genuine Ulster background from outsiders; the poem alludes to ‘Irish underlay’, the common factors shared by Ulster folk for which Heaney searches in Wintering Out. The poem ‘acts as the linguistic paradigm for a reconciliation beyond sectarian division’(NC46-8). The poet confessed that the ‘languagey poems’ (DOD124) eased his professional conscience by bridging the gap between his working language (English) and his Ulster Irish origins. The village landscape that backed on to the river Moyola provides words planted into the Ulster vernacular by historical English and Scots occupation: trenches for vegetable growth (long rigs), wide-leaved docks (broad docken) and a tree-fringed track […]

Oracle

In a poem that foretells (Oracle) of a poet-in-the-making Heaney relives a childhood moment that demonstrates his strong spirit of independence, his sensitivity to the world around and his busy imagination. Once upon a real time, child Heaney’s eagerness to wriggle free of parental control, run ahead and play hide-and-seek in the hollow trunk/ of the willow tree provided a passport to a secret spirit world in which he could commune with Nature (its listening familiar). This moment of first communion was immediately disrupted by intrusive, repetitive calls: as usual, they/ cuckoo your name/ across the fields. He recognized the sounds of family closing in, navigating the barriers separating them from him: You can hear them/ draw the poles of […]

The Backward Look

A complex variant of Heaney’s ‘languagey’ poems, the piece explores linguistic impurities that have crept into the spoken word and adulterated the Irish language. The poet’s principle concern is linguistic dispossession. By use of a kind of Audenesque ‘verbal contraption’ he reflects on the wider erosion of the Irish domain. The landscape might have changed little but the language that describes it has suffered from crossbreeding. In his Backward Look, the poet measures the impact of repeated invasion and incursion. His message is carried by the emblematic Irish snipe. Heaney recognizes changes in the sounds and movement of the startled snipe, pretending all is well (sleight of wing) but under closer scrutiny showing signs of injury: A stagger in air […]

Traditions

For Tom Flanagan Heaney met Tom Flanagan and was inspired by his Ireland-centred thinking at Berkeley. He explains the dedication: ‘It was Tom’s poem because I lifted the conclusion of it from his book on the Irish novelists (The Irish Novelists 1800-1850). The epigraph to that book juxtaposes MacMorris’s question in Henry V ( ) with Bloom’s answer in Ulysses … (Bloom’s reply) seemed to cut through a lot of the Identity crisis stuff that surrounded us in the early seventies so I stole it for the end of the poem’ (DOD143). The title introduces national stereotypes and the piece will pull the rug from under their feet. I The speaker identifies closely (Our) with the guttural muse of throaty […]

A New Song

The poem spins a web comprising South Derry place names, issues of Irish history (dispossession, uprising), a vanished world, things that happen in real-life (universal: girl-meets-boy; particular: a flood event). Its phonological content adds to the complexity. To help unravel the piece’s message NC refers to the Heaney’s essay ‘1972’ in Preoccupations: ‘discussing his beginnings as a poet, he writes, ‘I think of the personal and Irish pieties (his roots) as vowels and the literary awarenesses nourished by English (his degree, his working language) as consonants. My hope is that the poems will be vocables adequate to my whole experience.’ ’ (NC42); Heaney’s title announces a new music bidding to retrieve a lost domain: a song to be heard, the […]

The Other Side

As sectarian divisions in Northern Ireland were boiling up into major 1970s conflict Heaney takes a peek back at relationships prevailing in the Heaney neighbourhood of the 1940s. ‘The Other Side’ presents a guarded but benign encounter between your family and your Protestant neighbour Johnny Junkin (DOD131). Heaney’s neighbours as he explained to DOD were ‘both beside us and on the other side’, Protestants and Catholics living alongside each other, and in harmony. Wading through vegetation on the edge of Heaney property (Thigh-deep in sedge and marigolds) the young narrator is suddenly aware of a second looming presence at the ‘frontier’ separating them (a neighbour laid his shadow on the stream). Using a religious comparison the man writes off the […]

The Wool Trade

‘How different are the words “home”, “Christ”, “ale”, “master”, on his lips and mine’ Stephen Dedalus Heaney’s epigraph is taken from James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at the point when the young Irishman, in his dealings with the English Dean of Studies, suffers ‘unrest of spirit’ when it dawns on him that English (‘so familiar and so foreign’ to him) is a major legacy of English occupation. Three of his example words, of things that loom large in a young Irishman’s life (kinship, religion, social activity), lead to the fourth: his sense of Irish dispossession. Dedalus sounds the words out to himself conscious that the Dean, as an Englishman, will read their meaning differently. The […]

Linen Town

High Street, Belfast, 1786 A pen and ink study on tinted paper of Ye High Streete Belfast Anno Dom 1786 features the old Market House in front of which an insurrectionist would be hanged twelve years after; behind the vignette of bustling, fashionable Belfast life a clock is ticking: the political execution will change everything. Heaney uses a depiction announcing the political turbulence leading to the Act of Union of 1801 as a stark appeal to avoid yet another period of strife. His sense, however, that circumstances make recurring violence inevitable in Irish history will prove true: between the submission of the Wintering Out manuscript to Faber for consideration the events of Bloody Friday and Bloody Sunday will once again […]