Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

[Padraig]

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/25/seamus-heaney-last-poem-published

[Padraig]

Not long in his own grave, here is Seamus, a voice coming from the past, resurrecting thoughts and emotions that won't be buried.

http://inwardboundpoetry.blogspot.co.uk/2006/08/198-bog-queen-seamus-heaney.html

Here too The Bog Queen has her say:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/03/gerry-adams-jean-mcconville

A more recent update of this*

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Voices-Grave-Two-Mens-Ireland/dp/0571251692#_

*the Observer article being more recent than the book, of course.

[Anna]

Today, Radio 4, 16:30 'Radio Heaney' a half-hour programme of his best radio broadcasts (doesn't appear to be a repeat of other tribute programmes)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03pdh7d

[Padraig]

Noted, Anna, thank you.

I'm preparing a little Heaney package, especially for you - but anyone may read it - which I hope might pluck at a heartstring.
Nudge nudge - say no more.

[Padraig]

I heard the programme Anna. Did you?
Quite a lot of the usual stuff, I thought, not that it is ever stale to me. Some school broadcasts I actually used in class, some interviews I barely remember, and a lovely flavour of the old BBC broadcasting style, both English and Northern Ireland - equally toffee-nosed in their individual ways. Thank God for Heaney - as rural as pitchforks and turnips. He did refer to the Irish language with some regret - I was surprised to hear him say that he had not read it aloud in forty years.
As luck would have it, I was working on an Irish language aspect for the 'package' I referred to above, which I found interesting. I'll post it soon and you can judge

[Padraig]

Here it is.
A poetic recall of a real event, with a more prosaic description which itself is not lacking in feeling. Between the two you get the picture.


The Gaeltacht


I wish, mon vieux, that you and Barlo and I
Were back in Rosguill, on the Atlantic Drive,
And that it was again nineteen-sixty
And Barlo was alive

And Paddy Joe and Chips Rafferty aand Dicky
Were there , talking Irish, for I believe
In that case Aoibheann Marren and Margaret Conway
And M. and M. and Deirdre Morton and Niamh

Would be there as well. And it would be great too
If we could see ourselves, if the people we are now
Could hear what we were saying, and if this sonnet

In imitation of Dante's, where he's set free
In a boat with Lapo and Guido, with their girlfriends in it,
Could be the wildtrack of our gabble above the sea.

http://www.italianstudies.org/poetry/lp4.htm

http://www.derryjournal.com/news/features/remembering-seamus-1-5534865

[Padraig]

Tonight, BBC4, 11.00 pm, Out of the Marvellous.

Lightenings viii

The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.

The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,

A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
'This man can't bear our life here and will drown,'

The abbot said, 'unless we help him.' So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvellous as he had known it.

Seeing Things 1991

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Padraig - I hadn't seen either of these poems before you posted them here: many thanks indeed, and please carry on sharing these wonderful words.

[Padraig]

Padraig - I hadn't seen either of these poems before you posted them here: many thanks indeed, and please carry on sharing these wonderful words.

Well, ferneyhoughgeliebte, not just to keep the Seamus Heaney thread alive, I'm happy to oblige.

Would you call this a piece of 'World Music'?

The Rain Stick

Upend the rain stick and what happens next
Is a music that you never would have known
To listen for. In a cactus stalk

Downpour, sluice-rush, spillage and backwash
Come flowing through. You stand there like a pipe
Being played by water, you shake it again lightly

And diminuendo runs through all its scales
Like a gutter stopping trickling. And now here comes
A sprinkle of drops out of the freshened leaves,

Then subtle little wets off grass and daisies;
Then glitter-dazzle, almost-breaths of air.
Upend the stick again. What happens next

Is undiminished for having happened once,
Twice, ten, a thousand times before.
Who cares if all the music that transpires

Is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus?
You are like a rich man entering heaven
Through the ear of a raindrop. Listen now again.

The Spirit Level 1996

[Padraig]

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[Padraig]

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[Padraig]

On his first anniversary (30 August) I thought a poem would be appropriate; but which one?I can't decide.
I'll go for one that resonates with my own memories of school, of going away, and of that scholarly object of desire -

The Conway Stewart

'Medium', 14 carat nib,
Three gold bands in the clip-on screw-top,
In the mottled barrel a spatulate, thin

Pump-action lever
The shopkeeper
Demonstrated,

The nib uncapped,
Treating it to its first deep snorkel
In a newly opened ink bottle,

Guttery, snottery,
Letting it rest then at an angle
To ingest,

Giving us time
To look together and away
From our parting, due that evening,

To my longhand
'Dear'
To them, next day.

Seamus Heaney Human Chain 2010

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I didn't know that lovely poem, Padraig - thank you. He really could freeze a "small" event and convey its significance in the lives of those who experienced it in such a way that the reader empathises completely with it. And superbly senuous writing, culminating in the twist of that "longhand 'Dear'"; what a marvellous writer we have lost.

[Padraig]

Sorry ferney. Thank you for your reply. I spent an hour or so making a contribution only for an evil force to sweep away my labours. I was checking for typos when all went distorted and mostly disappeared. I'll try again in the near or distant future, but not tonight.Wasted effort is just as tiring. Sorry.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oh, I hate it when that happens. No apology needed, Padraig - your contributions here have put us all in your debt.