Long ago, I memorized this beatific poem. Each time I recite it to myself, I gain another insight about the poem, about the poet's craft, and about my own interior human life. This poem is a sonnet, and so its formal proportions "portion out" its themes of grief, solace, intimacy, distance. It's also an Ars Poetica, and so it embodies the poet's artistic allegiances to the Sensory ("senses"), and to the Sub-sensory, and to the Extra-sensory. The repetition of "let fall" is one of the most graceful and excruciating modulations I've ever found in poetry: for me, those falling sonics reproduce the physical and emotional sinking or collapsing (lapsing) that the human body must regularly practice in order to process grief or to accept difficult fundamental (foundation) truths about love and existence. So, for me, what makes this poem great is this: the mother's simple, quiet, but nonetheless NOBLE ritual of paring & cleaning foodstuffs with her son provides him -- for his entire life -- with at least one of the necessary means of processing grief ... and, eventually, of processing the grief of losing that very mother. The sounds and silences of baptism (anointing with water), of final unction (anointing with oil), and of poetic blessing (announcing) -- all give radiance to this poem, and magnificently so.
I spent a few years trying to get a first edition of one of Heaneys books,and wud look in book stores where ever I went to no avail...until on evening in my home town I had an hour to wait for my wife I went to the bookstore for a browse....in the store they had a glass case with books of value and to my surprise there was my book......I paid a small fortune for it ,but didn’t care......my son told me I needed treatment...but I was happy...I told him I cud sell it when Seamus died and make some money.........but now with Seamus no longer wit us I wud not part wit it for a fortune..I treasure that book and his work in general more than any other author.
Another great poet, Robert Frost, once said: Politics is about the grievance, but poetry is about the grief'. Few, if any, have elevated the spirit of poetry so brilliantly, and so vibrantly as Seamus Heaney. The man is, as I have often said before, Ireland's greatest living treasure.
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Long ago, I memorized this beatific poem. Each time I recite it to myself, I gain another insight about the poem, about the poet's craft, and about my own interior human life. This poem is a sonnet, and so its formal proportions "portion out" its themes of grief, solace, intimacy, distance. It's also an Ars Poetica, and so it embodies the poet's artistic allegiances to the Sensory ("senses"), and to the Sub-sensory, and to the Extra-sensory. The repetition of "let fall" is one of the most graceful and excruciating modulations I've ever found in poetry: for me, those falling sonics reproduce the physical and emotional sinking or collapsing (lapsing) that the human body must regularly practice in order to process grief or to accept difficult fundamental (foundation) truths about love and existence. So, for me, what makes this poem great is this: the mother's simple, quiet, but nonetheless NOBLE ritual of paring & cleaning foodstuffs with her son provides him -- for his entire life -- with at least one of the necessary means of processing grief ... and, eventually, of processing the grief of losing that very mother. The sounds and silences of baptism (anointing with water), of final unction (anointing with oil), and of poetic blessing (announcing) -- all give radiance to this poem, and magnificently so.
I spent a few years trying to get a first edition of one of Heaneys books,and wud look in book stores where ever I went to no avail...until on evening in my home town I had an hour to wait for my wife I went to the bookstore for a browse....in the store they had a glass case with books of value and to my surprise there was my book......I paid a small fortune for it ,but didn’t care......my son told me I needed treatment...but I was happy...I told him I cud sell it when Seamus died and make some money.........but now with Seamus no longer wit us I wud not part wit it for a fortune..I treasure that book and his work in general more than any other author.
A wonderfully tender poem. The power of such simple language and imagery is remarkable.
Another great poet, Robert Frost, once said:
Politics is about the grievance, but poetry is about the grief'.
Few, if any, have elevated the spirit of poetry so brilliantly, and so vibrantly as Seamus Heaney. The man is, as I have often said before, Ireland's greatest living treasure.
So love this
R.I.P. Seamus Heaney
cringe