tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post4411249171342381765..comments2024-02-05T09:17:53.322-08:00Comments on Adrian Barlow's blog: Seamus Heaney full faceAdrian Barlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04526714501872493961noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post-25285105924374678012013-09-14T08:10:56.588-07:002013-09-14T08:10:56.588-07:00Adrian
It’s taken me a while to decide what to say...Adrian<br />It’s taken me a while to decide what to say about your very thoughtful – and refreshingly different - piece upon Seamus Heaney’s death. <br /><br />The number of us taking your English Literature classes that chose to write substantial pieces spurred by Heaney’s poetry – and in my case his poetry criticism – is on its own an indicator of the impact his writing had on us. I was struck by the variety of subjects we found to write about. Every essay seemed to have found a very personal pathway into one or more poems, as if it was a matter of individual conscience first, and shared experience secondly. <br /><br />I was able to pick an argument with him, but my abiding memory of this one-sided encounter on paper is of my sheer delight that this great poet had recognised a late Philip Larkin poem for the extraordinary work that it is, when the poem in question had barely been commented on elsewhere. <br /><br />In your blog piece, you argue that key poems can be read in the context of the history of Irish conflict that marked a good portion of Heaney’s life. Your argument is hard to resist, and it’s clear Heaney did not ignore the history being made around him, and the effects he saw on the people of Ireland. However, I believe that the compulsion to confront the times he lived in was borne primarily from a social conscience, not a political one. I had the “….no glass of ours, was ever raised to toast the Queen….” line in mind when I originally said to you that I feared too much reading into the few political excursions, when the poetry is overwhelming of the universal experiences of life (and death).<br /><br />This theme of Heaney’s deeply personal poetry is one you identify, and I think will be the abiding response from the widest readership. The poems find pathos, empathy with their subjects, occasional melancholy in his own history, but always strike with a beautifully light touch that could wring a smile (at least from me) at any moment.<br /><br />In a private email to you, I quoted from “The Birch Grove”, a poem that is very funny and, of course, faultlessly crafted. <br />There is great irony, too, in the way he finishes the poem with the lines:<br />‘“If art teaches us anything”, he said, trumping life<br />With a quote, “it’s that the human condition is private”.’<br /><br />This from a master of the written word who made the most personal, private experiences open to all through his poetry. <br />Anilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07297710417543760428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post-88837419163604088072013-09-06T23:44:10.458-07:002013-09-06T23:44:10.458-07:00Many thanks, Garry. This is the first time (though...Many thanks, Garry. This is the first time (though perhaps not unexpectedly) that I have had messages from readers saying they were expecting me to write about a particular subject. I can't think of another poet, writing in English, whose death in recent years has occasioned such an unequivocal sense of loss with a correspondingly unequivocal sense of gratitude for their life and work.<br /><br />AdrianAdrian Barlowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04526714501872493961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post-43565633334950810882013-09-06T15:55:35.820-07:002013-09-06T15:55:35.820-07:00I'm glad you wrote this and expected you would...I'm glad you wrote this and expected you would. I'd like to use it in the classroom if I may. I'm also using The Guardian Obituary, which I find good reading with my students. I asked the class if they'd heard about Heaney's demise. Four of them had, those who hadn't were genuinely moved. One girl asked if he'd had a stroke. It gives so much more poignancy to the poems we're studying. Kay has posted a link to Heaney reading two poems from Human Chain. His passing is obviously a break in the human chain, a pull on the kite string of grief.Garry Headlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07741556616880181278noreply@blogger.com