Seamus Heaney - Book Report/Review Example

Introduction Seamus Heaney, a poet from Northern Ireland, has written many poems that deal with the past, present, and future. This Nobel Prize winning poet was born in 1939 in Derry, Northern Ireland, to a father that was a farmer. His grandfather was also a farmer. This is worthy of mention because Heaney often writes with farming as a backdrop or as the main subject of his poems. Although Heaney moved away from the family farm when he was young the farm never left him and it is quite obvious that his time on the farm had a big impact on him. Many of his poems have him looking forward to what he would be able to do when he was grown. He also writes about the conflict in Northern Ireland and events that took place. This poet often refers to his Gaelic heritage in his writings. He also was recently awarded the T.S. Elliot Prize for his poetry. Heaney was the eldest of nine children. Heaney explains the conflict within himself as the quiet of his father and the outspokenness of his mother. As a Catholic family the Heaneys sent their children to a catholic boarding school where Seamus would watch American Soldiers prepare for D-Day in the fields (Frangsmyr, 1999). It is there that Heaney imagined himself as between "history and ignorance" (Frangsmyr, 1999). The poems chosen here are examined for Heaney's portrayal of the future. In some the future means years, others days, and in some the future is minutes away and the anticipation in the poetry is evident. Heaney himself gives guidance as to how poetry is read: "excellent poems have two steps: first, they force the readers to concentrate on the 'break from usual life' described in the poem. Second, they place the focus back on the readers themselves. As a result, readers can understand the problem posed by the poem on a deeper level, thereby liberating them. (Heaney, 1996) NationalPoetry Day this year is Thursday October 4th. Interestingly enough the theme chosen for this year is "Dream". There are many Heaney poems and writings that deal with looking forward to the future. Dreaming about possibilties is also looking toward the future. "The Poetry Society is pleased to announce their association with Forward Arts, who will be taking National Poetry Day forward in new and exciting ways. This is excellent news for poets, poetry and all who engage with it." (The Poetry Review, 2007) The Seamus Heaney Centre will be assisting with National Poetry Day in October by conducting a "Dream Poetry Tour". An Analysis The poem "Rite of Spring" looks forward and describes the effects of winter and the arrival of spring as the working free of a hand pump to fetch water. As with many of Heaneys poems one can imagine oneself at the pump working it free with anticipation while reading the poem. And, one can see the reward at the end of the poem (water). Seamus Heaney's poem "Follower" looks to the future and to the past. The focus of this poem is on his father, Patrick, who often included Heaney when he worked about the farm. The poem describes a young Heaney observing his father expertly handle his team of horses while ploughing in the fields. Young Heaney follows behind his father as he ploughs, sometimes falling and sometimes riding on his fathers back. The whole time following his father Heaney dreams of someday of doing the jobs on the farm himself. This poem has one imagining being that child and following the father all over the farm. The child worshiped and admired his father and dreamt of being him. He expresses that he knew he was a nuisance to his father by constantly "yapping". The poem ends with the tables turned. The father now follows the son around. The father now relies on the son and is amazed by what his son can do. "From the Frontier of Writing" finds Heaney at a military checkpoint in Northern Ireland. He is in the present and future in this work. The present consists of the soldiers' examination of Heaney's vehicle while weapons are trained on the driver (Heaney). The future consists of the driver's fear of what might happen and the possibilities of what could happen if something goes wrong. The driver is cleared and allowed to proceed through the checkpoint. As he calmly proceeds through the checkpoint he is relieved and physically spent from the encounter. The driver finds himself back at the checkpoint as he prepares to write about it. He relives the experience in his mind and conveys the experience in his writing. "Limbo" is one of Heaney's best works. It tackles a subject that most would avoid. It talks about how a mother discards her infant in the ocean and doesn't leave until her hands are numb from the cold. The mother, so certain that the future with an illegitimate child would be unliveable, drowns her baby in the surf. The body is recovered when a fisherman retrieves his fishing nets and discovers more than fish in his catch (an infant). This poem shows how the present can dictate the future. It shows how humanity can, and will, destroy life. This is something that will affect this woman for the rest of her life. Her future will be marred by the memory of ending her child's life. In his poem "Digging With a Pen" Heaney expresses his admiration of both his father and grandfather who are farmers. Heaney's desire to be like them is great. He realizes that he won't be farming like they do with a spade but promises he will farm, in a sense, with his pen and mind: But I've no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I'll dig with it. (Kirsch, 2006) "Heaney is ever conscious of being "a Catholic native of Northern Ireland born into one of the most intransigent ethnic and religious conflicts in the word That identity renders his rural Ulster "not a pastoral idyll but the theater of wrenching moral dramas." In one of Heaney's most personal renderings of the sectarian violence, "Casualty," from Field Work (1979), he relates his frustration as a bystander, when the Troubles claim a man he fished with, a drunkard, says Kirsch, "who was killed by his fellow Catholics when he violated an IRA curfew to go out to a bar"."(Kirsch, 2006) Heaney's biggest problem expressed in this work was the knowledge of what was going to happen to this man and his inability to think of a way to help this man. The future, in this case, will be the death of this friend: How culpable was he That last night when he broke Our tribe's complicity "Now you're supposed to be An educated man, I hear him say. "Puzzle me The right answer to that one." (Kirsch, 2006) "The Mid-Term Break" is a poem that captures the sadness of death as well as the struggle of a young man between boyhood and manhood. There is a small portion of the poem that has this young man sitting for hours wondering about what's next as he listens to his school go through the motions of its day. The young man sits in the sick bay waiting for his ride home: I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close, At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home. (PoemHunter.com) The poem alludes to some of his thoughts while waiting in the sick bay, but it is the unknown thoughts that this young man was thinking that leave readers wondering. "Testimony" is a poem about preparations for D-Day and the liberation of France and Europe. The writer had no idea that these troops were destined for a major assault on German occupation in Europe. He couldn't predict the future but probably look back on his observations when D-Day actually took place and made the connection between what he saw and the news he was hearing. These two excerpts from his poem support that the author didn't know what was in store for the troops but realized the connection later. It makes on wonder what the author thought these troops where there for. Did he think Ireland was being occupied One can only speculate. Testimony "'We were killing pigs when the Yanks arrived" "Hosting for Normandy. Not that we knew then Where they were headed, standing there like youngsters As they tossed us gum"(Guardian Unlimited, 2007) The poem "Blackberry Picking" is a good example of how anticipation rules a child's life. The children repeat the berry picking ritual every year with similar results. The berries invariably sour and stink after being left in the cans. The children know that this will happen but hope every year that the outcome will be different: "We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre. But when the bath was filled we found a fur, A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache. The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not." (Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney) Most of Heaney's poems tell stories that took place in Ireland. The poems take the reader to Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. His poetry takes the reader to the farm where Heaney spent his younger years. It also takes the reader to war and conflict in The two Irelands. "Heaney's poetry is grounded in actual, local detail, often in memories of Derry or observation of his adopted home in the Republic of Ireland". (Poetry Archive, 2007) When Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995 his acceptance speech contained much of his poem "Exposure". This poem expressed Heaney's self-doubt and fear of failing and explained his "vocation to be one of his own people, to articulate the losses and longings of the tribe to which he belongs."(The Replenishing Fountain) Heaney expresses his dismay at others defining his move from Belfast to Eire as a move that had "provoked triumphant crowing from Protestant forces who wished good-riddance to a famous "papist"". (The Replenishing Fountain). Heaney's desire was to remain a non-combatant. His poetry simply recalled what he had seen and how it made him feel about the conflict in Northern Ireland. Heaney knew that if he had remained he would have been captured and held captive by "Republicans who wanted to hold Heaney captive as a kind of propagandist icon of struggle in the North."(The Replenishing Fountain) Upon hearing of a friend that had been captured and held captive without trial, Heaney made the decision to move. His future in Belfast would be one of captivity and exploitation had he stayed. That is what Heaney wished to avoid. Heaney's experience shows that one cannot be merely a spectator or non-combatant in a conflict because someone will decide for you what side you are on. "And yet each drop recalls The diamond absolutes. I am neither internee nor informer; An inner migr, grown long-haired And thoughtful; a wood-kerne Escaped from the massacre, Taking protective colouring From bole and bark, feeling Every wind that blows; " (The Replenishing Fountain) One of Heaney's most interesting poems is "The Railway Children." In this poem he writes from the perspective of a child watching raindrops on a telegraph wire. The raindrops were assumed to be pouches carrying messages along the wire. The rain had filled the wire with many drops and the amazement of the child imagining where those words were going and coming from. "Of the telegraph poles and the sizzling wires. Like lovely freehand they curved for miles East and miles west beyond us, sagging Under their burden of swallows. We were small and thought we knew nothing Worth knowing. We thought words travelled the wires In the shiny pouches of raindrops, Each one seeded full with the light Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, and ourselves So infinitesimally scaled We could stream through the eye of a needle". (The Replenishing Fountain) The children's innocence may be described as their wisdom because they had been told that the words travel along the wires. This sparked their imagination and helped them come up with a plausible explanation for how the words traveled along the wire. The raindrops helped them develop their conclusion. This poem is a welcome departure from the war and conflict topics of many of Heaney's works. "The Forge" has Heaney describing an anvil and its possibilities. He describes the anvil and its potential to make music: The anvil must be somewhere in the centre, Horned as a unicorn, at one end square, Set there immoveable: an altar Where he expends himself in shape and music. Another theme in this poem is the anvil's description and its association with Christ. "Heaney's choice of words like "altar", and "unicorn" (a symbol of Christ), carrying with them a sense of the sacred and numinous, allow the anvil "somewhere in the centre" of his poem to be both the particular anvil in the dark workshop of an Irish blacksmith, and also an emblem for that unknowable centre in the darkness beyond our perceptions, where our Creator expends Himself in shape and music."(The Replenishing Fountain) Heaney style of writing and his works have been the subject of many commentaries and journal articles. His ability to recount the past and picture the future in writing has allowed Heaney the opportunity to express his vision of how thing are. His writing, for the most part, consists of Hiberno English. This is the English as spoken by the Irish. With English as the world's language, and Heaney choosing to write in English, offers the author the opportunity to have a wide readership and popularity. Heaney's writing offers a glimpse into the past that, in essence, warns of the possibilities that the future holds. Some argue that "Heaney's real subject is how words give meaning to the random violence of the world we inhabit."(Pratt, 2007) Heaney's ability to articulate the fact that we live in a dangerous present, and future, makes him a unique poet among poets. He has written several poems that deal directly with the conflict. In Voices From Lemnos Heaney addresses the belief that according to history there is no hope for the future. This poem voices Ireland's frustration and hopelessness while also addressing the hope that justice will prevail. "Hope and History rhyme" says that although history repeats itself, history can rhyme without being a repeat of the past. Voices From Lemnos History says, Don't hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme. Heaney's hope for Northern Ireland is evident. But Heaney also realizes the realities of war and how one must behave in order to make it through the conflict alive: "'What ever you say, say nothing'(how to behave in a violent society)" (Smyth), 2001) His advice is brief and to the point as it should be in a society where conflict often leads to death. There is value in saying nothing as it leads to life rather than death. In "A Cure at Troy" Heaney positions himself as observer rather than participant. He describes what going into battle might be like for the King. Some people wept, and not for sorrow - joy That the king had armed and upped and sailed for Troy, But inside me like struck sound in a gong That killing-fest, the life-warp and world-wrong It brought to pass, still augured and endured. I'd dream of blood in bright webs in a ford, Of bodies raining down like tattered meat On top of me asleep - and me the lookout The queen's command had posted and forgotten, The blind spot her farsightedness relied on. (29) And, in this piece Heaney puts himself in the shoes of the Mycenae and describes his future and his past: If a god of justice had reached down from heaven For a strong beam to hang his scale-pans on He would have found me tensed and ready-made. I balanced between destiny and dread Heaney also takes pity on Cassandra in this poem: No such thing as innocent bystanding. "Cassandra, while being able to see into the future, is tormented with the curse that no one will listen to her, and her impotence as a marginalised spokesperson for her society, warning against forthcoming violence parallels the position of Heaney, the watchman and social commentator." (Smyth, 2001) Many see this as a connection between Heaney's poetry and his reality. Thinking back to the poem where he goes through the checkpoint and to the poem where his friend is killed one can see the connection. There are no innocent bystanders. Conclusion Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995. After accepting the award he headed home to Ireland. He was welcomed home as a famous Irish poet but, despite the fact that he wanted to be seen as a nonsectarian non-combatant, he was celebrated as being the symbol of Irish hope for the future and the hope for lasting peace in Ireland. Heaney, in his many writings, has taken his readers on journeys into the past, the present, and the future. He has shown the inocence of childhood (The Railroad Children), the nastiness of death (Mid-Term Break), and the fear that accompanies one in a war zone (Fronteer of Writing). Heaney has articulated a women's fear of the future upon the birth of an illegitimate child. (Limbo) This poem shows the lengths that humanity will go through to inforce conformity. Heaney has also provided an opportunity for the English speaking world to experience writings that he has translated from other languages. In addition Heany has shown the connection between past, present, and future. Most often poets are only noticed when they have been long gone. Heaney offers the opportunity to see a poet in action and ask questions along the way as to what meant when he wrote a particular poem. References: Books And Writers. (2007). Seamus (Justin) Heaney 1939-. Retrieved 2007-04-26 from http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/heaney.htm. Frangsmyr, Tore. (1995). Les Prix Nobel. 1996. Retrieved 2007-04-25 From www.NobelPrize.org Footnotes. (2007). New York Times, Retrieved Thursday, April 26, 2007 from the MasterFILE Premier database. Guardian Unlimited Guardian News and Media Limited 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-26 From http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/poetry/story/0,6000,895621,00.html Heaney, Seamus. The Cure at Troy. London: Faber, 1990. ---. The Government of the Tongue. London: Faber, 1989. ---. Lecture at Trinity College Dublin. 2 March 1995. ---. New Selected Poems 1966-1987. London: Faber, 1990 ---. The Spirit Level. London: Faber, 1996. Nottingham Playhouse. (2006). Wellington Circus Nottingham NG1 5AF Retrieved 2007-04-26 from http://www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk/files/The%20Burial%20at%20thebes.pdf Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996. (2007). Catholic Digest, Retrieved Thursday, April 26, 2007 from the MasterFILE Premier database. The Poet of Work and Delight. (2007). Wilson Quarterly, Retrieved Thursday, April 26, 2007 from the Academic Search Premier database. Poetry Archive. (2007) Retrieved 2007-04-26 From http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.dopoetId=1392 Poetry Review, Spring 2007 issue. Retrieved 2007-04-26 From http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/homepage/ Pratt, W. ([YEAR]). District and Circle: Poems. World Literature Today, 81(1), 73-74. Retrieved Thursday, April 26, 2007 from the MasterFILE Premier database. The Replenishing Fountain: Hope and Renewal in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney(1975). Retrieved 2007-04-26 From http://www.st-edwards-cam.org.uk/docs/fhp-session6.pdf Smyth, Marie and Gillian Robinson. (2001). Researching Violently Divided Societies. United Nations University Press. Pages 57 and 63. Read More