As I sit here at my desk and munch my banana, the beeb website pops up and tells me that Seamus Heaney has died.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23898891
I could never get into his work much, I think it's because he wrote of a landscape and a culture that was very alien to me. His poems of the Irish countryside, horses and army checkpoints touched me intellectually but, not emotionally.
However, I do love this one poem of his. Love the innocence and the joy it engenders in the poem and the end just does a 180 deg turn and changes the whole in just a few lines.
I never went blackberry picking when I was a kid. I climbed over fences into gardens and fruit orchards to hurriedly pick the ripest looking mango or bunch of rambutans before I was spotted by the owners.
So, why do I like this poem? It's the one Heaney poem that I connect with emotionally. I can feel the child-like excitement and the buzz and the un-controlled greed and hunger for "just one more..." and then the sudden and un-seen "come-down". The silent elephant of disapointment in the room that I never noticed until I sat down to enjoy the spoils of my stolen fruit.
I see that look in the faces of my children now and then and when their bright joyful faces crumple into disbelief and tears, I feel for them deeply to the point of tears.
This poem does that to me and like all good poetry, it moves you emotionally for reasons your head doesn't, and can never really comprehend.
For that, I salute you Mr Heaney. RIP.
Blackberry Picking - Seamus Heaney
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23898891
I could never get into his work much, I think it's because he wrote of a landscape and a culture that was very alien to me. His poems of the Irish countryside, horses and army checkpoints touched me intellectually but, not emotionally.
However, I do love this one poem of his. Love the innocence and the joy it engenders in the poem and the end just does a 180 deg turn and changes the whole in just a few lines.
I never went blackberry picking when I was a kid. I climbed over fences into gardens and fruit orchards to hurriedly pick the ripest looking mango or bunch of rambutans before I was spotted by the owners.
So, why do I like this poem? It's the one Heaney poem that I connect with emotionally. I can feel the child-like excitement and the buzz and the un-controlled greed and hunger for "just one more..." and then the sudden and un-seen "come-down". The silent elephant of disapointment in the room that I never noticed until I sat down to enjoy the spoils of my stolen fruit.
I see that look in the faces of my children now and then and when their bright joyful faces crumple into disbelief and tears, I feel for them deeply to the point of tears.
This poem does that to me and like all good poetry, it moves you emotionally for reasons your head doesn't, and can never really comprehend.
For that, I salute you Mr Heaney. RIP.
Blackberry Picking - Seamus Heaney
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