Seamus Heaney  (1939 - Present)

 

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Seamus Heaney

 

Seamus Heaney was born in April 1939, he was the oldest child of a family that would contain nine children.  Seamus was a big cattle dealer.  He worked in the hills as a kid for his dad, however times would soon change and the family would soon move away.

Seamus Heaney attended the local primary school, and at the age of twelve he won a scholarship to St.Columb's college.  While attending St.Columb's college Seamus was taught mainly Latin and Irish, and because of the classes he took at this college, these were the determining factors in many of the developments which mat have played a big part in him becoming a poet.

Heaney’s poems first came to the public eye in the mid-1960s when he was a very active member in a group that was made up mostly of different poets.

Heaney continued to work with his writings and poems through out most of his life.  Finally in the year 1995 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

 

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Bogland by Seamus Heaney

for T. P. Flanagan

 

We have no prairies

To slice a big sun at evening--

Everywhere the eye concedes to

Encrouching horizon,

 

 

Is wooed into the cyclops' eye

Of a tarn. Our unfenced country

Is bog that keeps crusting

Between the sights of the sun.

 

 

They've taken the skeleton

Of the Great Irish Elk

Out of the peat, set it up

An astounding crate full of air.

 

 

Butter sunk under

More than a hundred years

Was recovered salty and white.

The ground itself is kind, black butter

 

 

Melting and opening underfoot,

Missing its last definition

By millions of years.

They'll never dig coal here,

 

 

Only the waterlogged trunks

Of great firs, soft as pulp.

Our pioneers keep striking

Inwards and downwards,

 

 

Every layer they strip

Seems camped on before.

The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.

The wet centre is bottomless.

 

The Otter by Seamus Heaney

When you plunged

The light of Tuscany wavered

And swung through the pool

From top to bottom.

 

 

I loved your wet head and smashing crawl,

Your fine swimmer's back and shoulders

Surfacing and surfacing again

This year and every year since.

 

 

I sat dry-throated on the warm stones.

You were beyond me.

The mellowed clarities, the grape-deep air

Thinned and disappointed.

 

 

Thank God for the slow loadening,

When I hold you now

We are close and deep

As the atmosphere on water.

 

 

My two hands are plumbed water.

You are my palpable, lithe

Otter of memory

In the pool of the moment,

 

 

Turning to swim on your back,

Each silent, thigh-shaking kick

Re-tilting the light,

Heaving the cool at your neck.

 

 

And suddenly you're out,

Back again, intent as ever,

Heavy and frisky in your freshened pelt,

Printing the stones.

When I take a look at this poem I really get a view of a man sitting on a rock of some sort and just sit there looking at the Otter as it swims by.  It gets really deep into the story and it also really shows us a lot by just giving us very few words.

Another thing that I really like is how the poem stays calm through out the entire speech.  The writing that is used really works well for this poem because there is a lot going on however it is a pretty basic poem.

Finally I really like how it keeps talking about the Otter and how it comes and goes from time to time and finally at the very end the Otter leaves but doesn’t come back.  But it’s ok because it is time to leave anyway and that is why I believe the Otter left in the first place.

This poem really gives insight for someone to hold onto something that they can really care about.  I’m sure that we have all had someone come and go in our life and we just wish that they would stay near us, but reading about the Otter it really shows us that even if someone or something leaves that doesn’t mean that it is never going to come back.  You just have to hold on.

 Sources

1.   "Seamus Heaney." Famous Poets and Poems. 2006. 8 May 2007 <http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/seamus_heaney>.
2.   Heaney, Seamus. "Seamus Heaney." 8 May 2007 <http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1995/heaney-bio.html>.