A ‘Poetry Reading’ – Seamus Heaney

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am and Ken’s invitation for a ‘simple steak on the BBQ’, for a few friends who went with us to Tasmania last month, unexpectedly turned into an entertaining evening of “Poetry Reading”.

Fellow traveller Father Steve arrived carrying a book of poems by Seamus Heaney, the Irish Nobel Laureate who died last week . . .

Steve was looking forward to hearing Dubliner Des Whelan, whom he’d first met (and shared a Guinness or two with in Hobart), recite a verse or two in his typical Irish lilt.

Actually, it was Steve who knew better where to zero in on a couple of emotive verses that Seamus, as an aging man, had written in an attempt to re-experience some childhood perceptions of daily life . . . as simple as helping his mother peeling potatoes . . . . and folding the sheets off the clothesline.

I wonder what this current generation thinks of our deriving such pleasure in re-living these memories of our own youth?

Click here to read marvellous NY Times Article When it opens. (Click ‘Skip the Ad’ to get to the article.) – Mr. Heaney, a widely celebrated Irish poet who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, is recognized as one of the major poets of the 20th century.

6 Responses to A ‘Poetry Reading’ – Seamus Heaney

  • Bill, Coleraine NI
    Mick, Seamus Heaney was born in a rural part of my county. Maybe 25 miles away from me. He was the main staple of out English literature classes, and Shakespeare. I'm glad Steve read 'Digging'. I remember it. And as kids, Des and I used to gather potatoes. I think it would be called child cruelty now sending primary age kids out to do such back breaking work. But we loved it and it gave us extra pocket money. And I guess helped mould us into who we are. Bill
    Reply
  • EPC, Miami
    Your introduction with your diction with the background music is superb. A very different activity, so Victorian! Don't send it to the younger generation in your family because for sure they will say that you and your friends are a lost cause. Edmundo
    Reply
  • Anne, Gold Coast
    One of Cecil's best!!!!!!!! A
    Reply
  • Paul
    Hello Michael, Very lovely indeed. There is a little group of us who often meet for a meal on Thursday evenings. We always begin with poetry ... instead of grace, since they are mostly atheists; which I generally find as refreshing company. Paolo
    Reply
  • mark schramm
    here's an ironically inappropriate Heaney quote given what is likely going to transpire today in the Australian Elections: 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. So hope for a great sea-change on the far side of revenge. Believe that a further shore is reachable from here. Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells.
    Reply
    • Michael Mus
      Awesome Nephew, Your old uncle harboured a similar cold fear five weeks ago at the then turn of political events. We can be thankful that our somewhat different persuasions (political) do not detract from our mutually awesome attractiveness (to each other). The host of CBC News The Sunday Edition, Michael Enright, reflects on the last words of the great Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, and how our poets act as the counter to our fears in the modern world. "Poets know about human pain and human fear. It is part of their mandate to write about our fears, not necessarily to assuage them, but only to describe them accurately so that we know what we are dealing with. We seem to be steeped in fear these days, marinating in the uncertainty that something dreadful is about to happen. Not just the existential fear of death and what may or may not come after. Not just extinction. The old worry about their physical deterioration and loss of dignity and sense and yes, pensions. The young worry about their future. People with jobs fear losing them. People without a job fear that they will never again enjoy the pleasures of honorable work. We fear for our children. We drive them to school, because by walking they might fall to harm or meet a stranger in a dark place. We in truth educate them in the ways of fear from an early age. We fear the untrammeled power of wealth in a globalized world. We fear the special interests, the string pullers, the privileged, the insiders, the scammers. Our public institutions such as schools and hospitals fear litigation and insurance companies. We are frightened by the prospect of a poisoned planet, as the lasting legacy to our grandchildren. We fear new, angry forces in the world, forces we can neither control nor understand. We are knocked off balance by torrents of confusing news reports, daily, hourly even, about the terrifying state of things. Our political leaders don't seem to have a purchase on anything. They seem to fear telling us the truth about the world. They fear to act. Governments like to create nodules of fear in their populations. For our political leaders, a goodly measure of fear inspires a people to do what they are told without too many questions. Our poets act as the counter to our fears. Our poets don't change the world, but instead change the way we look at it. They provide a glimmer of something better.  In The Cure at Troy, Seamus Heaney wrote: 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 grew up in the hard-scrabble country of rural Northern Ireland. He lived through the "Troubles," the horrific sectarian violence of the '70s and '80s. If anyone had reason to live a fearful life, surely it was him. But his art and his insight are a constant denial of the corrosive power of fear. In his Nobel Prize lecture in Stockholm in 1995, he said, "Walk on air, against your better judgment." Which was his dying message to his wife and to us. "Noli timere – Don't be afraid."
      Reply

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