by Seamus Heaney
Well, as Kavanagh said, we have lived
In important places. The lonely scarp
Of St Columb’s College, where I billeted
For six years, overlooked your Bogside.
I gazed into new worlds: the inflamed throat
Of Brandywell, its floodlit dogtrack,
The throttle of the hare. In the first week
I was so homesick I couldn’t even eat
The biscuits left to sweeten my exile.
I threw them over the fence one night
In September
When the lights of houses in the Lecky Road
Were amber in the fog. It was an act
Of stealth.
Then Belfast, and then Berkeley.
Here’s two on’s are sophisticated,
Dabbling in verses till they have become
A life: from bulky envelopes arriving
In vacation time to slim volumes
Despatched `with the author’s compliments’.
Those poems in longhand, ripped from the wire spine
Of your exercise book, bewildered me—
Vowels and ideas bandied free
As the seed-pods blowing off our sycamores.
I tried to write about the sycamores
And innovated a South Derry rhyme
With hushed and lulled full chimes for pushed and pulled.
Those hobnailed boots from beyond the mountain
Were walking, by God, all over the fine
Lawns of elo
At times I suspect my love of Yeats&#; poetry makes it difficult for me to fully appreciate other Irish poets because too often I end up trying to compare their poetry to that of Yeats&#; poetry.
In Selected Poems Seamus Heaney, like Yeats, often refers to classic Irish literature. For instance, one section of the selected poems is entitled &#;Sweeney Astray&#; and is Heaney&#;s version of the medieval Irish Buile Shuibhne, a major text in the Irish literary canon. It is the tale of Sweeney, who having crossed St Rónán is cursed by him. I suppose one day I am going to have to force myself to read this, but the truth is that, having read more mythology than I cared to, I have little desire to read the romanticized history of Ireland. The truth is that for many Americans these poems will seem unapproachable and irrelevant. And, yes, this seems to be the same Sweeney that appears in T.S. Eliot&#;s poems, certainly another reason to resist it.
In reality, though, Heaney reminds me more of Thomas Hardy or James Wright than he does W.B. Yeats, though he is a much more &#;classical&#; poet than either Hardy or Wright, often preferring to develop his ideas
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney’s poetry spans themes of nature, history, and human experience, capturing the essence of Irish life while resonating with universal truths.
1. “Digging” (Death of a Naturalist, )
This iconic poem reflects Heaney’s connection to his rural roots and the legacy of manual labor, contrasting it with his craft as a poet.
2. “Blackberry-Picking” (Death of a Naturalist, )
A vivid depiction of childhood and the fleeting nature of joy, this poem showcases Heaney’s mastery of sensory imagery.
3. “Mid-Term Break” (Death of a Naturalist, )
This poignant poem recounts the tragic death of Heaney’s younger brother, capturing the grief and confusion of loss.
4. “The Tollund Man” (Wintering Out, )
Drawing on the preserved body of an Iron Age man, this poem explores themes of violence and sacrifice, linking ancient history to modern conflicts.
5. “Bogland” (Door into the Dark, )
A meditation on Ireland’s landscape and its layers of history, this poem symbolizes the interconnectedness of place and memory.
6. “Casualty” (Field Work, )
This elegy for a fisherman killed during The Troubles exemplifies Heaney’s ability to address political violence
dedicated to Seamus Deane.
Heaney identifies two systems that brought their repressive regimes to bear on him as an individual with a mind of his own. Such was the trepidation that their rules of conduct generated that in the poem he reprises the notion of incarceration in The Unknown Legislator’s Dream. Though the piece is bedded in Heaney’s real-life experiences in Ireland the title alludes to the bureaucracies of oppressive states in post WWII Eastern Europe. Sandwiched between them is a short account of Heaney’s red-blooded male frustrations!
The initial interjection (well) announces that Heaney is poised to speak &#; of events from his personal biography &#; his important places borrowed from Patrick Kavanagh&#;s Epic of
His first &#;monument&#; (in the Yeatsian sense) is St Columb&#;s College in Derry where billeted as a soldier in some foreign place Heaney lived out his secondary education. The school set on a steep prominence (lonely scarp) &#; Heaney transfers the epithet, he was the lonely one &#; overlooked the neighbourhood where Seamus Deane was born (your Bogside).
This first-year secondary-schoolboy exiled from his rural Mossbawn b
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