SEAMUS HEANEY - I LOVE HIS POETRY

SEAMUS HEANEY 

I loved Seamus Heaney and his poetry – the poetry will live on forever, but sadly he passed away in 2013

I met Seamus Heaney once in Dublin but only to say “hello” – so many things I would have loved to have asked him – but why is it when we meet the people we admire we so often clam up and utter nonsensical platitudes or in my case a monosyllabic grunt of welcome.

I am probably the last person to write a eulogy to one of my literary heroes especially as I am very limited in my knowledge of poetry – but then why not? Seamus Heaney’s poetry touched me and millions of others that were not poets or even blessed with an ounce of his sublime use of language. 

Born on a family farm in the rural heart of County Londonderry, Seamus Heaney never forgot the world he came from. "I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells / of waterweed, fungus and dank moss," 

His BBC obituary summed up his life very succinctly: "he was a translator, broadcaster and prose writer of distinction, but his poetry was his most remarkable achievement, for its range, its consistent quality and its impact on readers: Love poems, epic poems, poems about memory and the past, poems about conflict and civil strife, poems about the natural world, poems addressed to friends, poems that found significance in the everyday or delighted in the possibilities of the English language".

"The very first poem in his first major collection was called Digging, and it described his father digging potatoes and his grandfather digging turf. It ended:

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.

His roots lay deep in the Irish countryside - It proved to be his manifesto. He spent a lifetime digging with his pen, but returned often in his poetry to the landscape and society of his boyhood in a countryside of farms and small towns, where Protestant and Catholic rubbed along tolerably, if warily, and one of his earliest memories was listening to the shipping forecast on the BBC"

To my knowledge Seamus Heaney never acted as a spokesman concerning the Northern Irish troubles – I don’t doubt that he was appalled by the violence and crass ignorance of much of what went on – some of his writing expressed this – I know he cared deeply and as a supreme man of words he would have encapsulated the misery, loss of life, suffering and tensions that gripped the Emerald Isles from north to south and back again relentlessly – better than anyone during those dark times. The violence undoubtedly depressed him

In his work “North” published in 1975, a new darker tone entered his writing – violence had erupted a few years earlier in what was to be twenty or more years of bombing, shootings riots, suffering, internments, brutality – it was vile and the human race at its very worst. For a poet like Seamus Heaney it would have been too much – I am told that “North” was quite controversial when it was published but reading it today I sense the desolation and a need to remember life as had been for him growing up in the North.

I first discovered Seamus Heaney when I bought the little volume of his works “The Haw Lantern” published in 1987. I loved that book of poetry – as the publisher Faber and Faber wrote: “widely and justly celebrated for his flawless handling of the lyric; Seamus Heaney is here shown venturing into new imaginative territory. Poems exploring the theme of loss, and in particular a sonnet sequence concerning the death of his mother, are joined in this book by meditations on the conscience of the writer and exercises in an allegorical vein that will delight everyone reading them”.

Couldn’t have said it better myself :)

The Haw Lantern

The wintry haw is burning out of season,
crab of the thorn, a small light for small people,
wanting no more from them but that they keep
the wick of self-respect from dying out,
not having to blind them with illumination.

But sometimes when your breath plumes in the frost
it takes the roaming shape of Diogenes
with his lantern, seeking one just man,
so you end up scrutinized from behind the haw
he holds up at eye-level on its twig,
and you flinch before its bonded path and stone,
its blood-prick that you wish you would test and clear you,
its pecked-at ripeness that scans you, then moves on

I just adored his use of language – the English language is a unique and amazing vehicle that has been crafted and drafted into prose or poetry that captured the world’s imagination and wonder – from Shakespeare, Milton, Yeats, Dickens, Larkin, Ambler, Amis, Auden, Ackroyd to Browning, Bacon, Bainbridge, Bennett and Bronte (and that is just a few of the “A’s” and “B’s” - the list of writers and poets is breathtakingly long  - the volume of quality writing in English is almost overwhelming – of course you can say this of French, German and Italian languages and so forth but somehow due to the Royal Navy, empire and historical circumstances far too complex to delve into here, the English Language emigrated and has produced works of inestimable value - the poetry of Seamus Heaney stands tall at the pinnacle of its art, expressiveness and incredibly beautiful use of words.

In 1995 Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature – following in the footsteps of that other great Irish poet WB Yeats. His reputation spread far beyond literary circles. He was visiting professor at Harvard and also professor of poetry at Oxford.

Books of his works such as Wintering Out, Field Work, Seeing Things, The Spirit Level, Electric Light and District and Circle have enthralled all of us that love the poetry and words of  Seamus Heaney – rest in peace dear poet – and thank you for your language, compassion and love of nature and humanity

If you haven't discovered the writing of Seamus Heaney please do so - they are a joy and gift to all of us

Thank you