A Letter To Seamus Heaney
Dear Mr. Heaney,
I have recently studied your poetry for my Leaving Certificate English course and enjoyed it immensely. I admire the method by which you turn your poetry in to an exploration of more expansive topics. I am going to discuss some of your poems and the effects that they had on me as a reader.
A poem I especially admire is The Tollund Man. I found your exploration of the past to interpret the future to be inspiring. I felt that the parallel drawn between the ritual killing Age of the Iron Age and the killings of innocent victims in contemporary Ireland to be particularly insightful. I however see your image of the Tollund Man to be a much more peaceful one as the man willingly gave his life to the “goddess” bog and “she tightened her torc around him” embracing his ritualistic sacrifice so that she may bring the Spring once more. We see this peace in “the mild pods of his eyelids” which suggest serenity, however this is in stark contrast to the atrocities carried out in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The image of “tell-tale skin and teeth flecking the sleepers” is grotesque and horrifying to imagine, and I feel however you may try that it might be impossible for you to translate the savage murders of the present into the more meaningful death of the Tollund Man. I was deeply moved upon reading the concluding line of the poem where you state that you “feel lost, unhappy and at home” I find your attempt to make bearable the atrocities of the Troubles highly admirable and your desire for your own world to change truly moving. You have said of your poetry that you are searching for “images and symbols adequate to our predicament” but I feel that the sadistic murders of our time may be too horrifying to relate to any killing of the past, ritual or not.
The Essay on "Remittance Man"- Judith Wright Poem Analysis
In her poem “Remittance Man”, Judith Wright focuses on the theme of living up to society’s unwritten code of conduct within England’s 19th century culture. She suggests that within a society so socially divided, there remains the idle rich who are obligated to abide by the incessant need for social etiquette expected of their station. She compares this English lifestyle to ...
Although your poem “The Forge” may celebrate local craftsmanship and explore cultural roots, it is my opinion that your real purpose in writing this poem was to explore the subject that is the mystery of the creative process. This poem is in the form of a sonnet which is, I believe, to display your dedication to, and love of poetry. The opening line is written in iambic pentameter: “All I know is a door into the dark” which gives it quality of statement, but the phrase “All I know” suggests both humility and uncertainty. Also the staccato rhythm in the same verse lends an air of excitement: “short pitched ring”. You have not yet gained the courage to cross the threshold but an eagerness to do so also resonates. I adore the sense of magic and mystery created when you consider the anvil, how it must be “somewhere in the middle” and how it is “set there immoveable” I gained a sense that this “relic” is mythical and somewhat religious, that the ordinary is sacred. The blacksmith is like a priest at the “altar” becoming part of his own creative process. The blacksmith is, like yourself, an artist, but he is an artist of a different kind, he moves to the music and rhythm of his work as you might, but his work is also physically draining and laborious. To the smith his work is everything, his livelihood and his passion. It is my belief that even though people, artists, such as yourself may be the instruments through which creativity manifests itself, to whom the metaphorical door may be knowable, they are blinded to a creative process that is ultimately unknowable, by the dark beyond the door.
I believe your poem A Constable Calls is the most overtly political poem I have studied on my course, dealing with the divided society of Northern Ireland. You present this poem, like many of your other poems, as a memory poem. Your wrote this poem in the way you remembered it a young boy which captures the innocence of the event in a way that only a child could. The poem opens with a description, not of the constable, but of his bike. The bicycle “stood” upright, precise; it is well-equipped and its “mud splasher”, “dynamo” and “fat, black handlegrips” suggest control and authority. The dynamo “cocked back” lends and air of assurance and confidence like a loaded gun. The constable himself is seen as an almost inhuman entity that exists only to cause and deliver fear to the catholic families of Northern Ireland. The constable is a most unwelcome visitor, “his cap was upside down on the floor”. He is shown no courtesy, offered no drink to quench his thirst even though his ”slightly sweating hair” tells us he would have greatly appreciated one. But this man, this figure doesn’t deserve it, he is intruding on the house bringing with him “arithmetic and fear” and causing tension in a house that is not his.
The Term Paper on Multiple Choice Poem Line Question
Thomas Wyatt, 'They Flee From Me's et of Multiple-choice Questions Analyzing a Poem Sir Thomas Wyatt's sixteenth-century lyric 'They flee from me' is an enigmatic poem that pleases at least partly because it provides no final certainty about the situation it describes. Yet the poem, while in some respects indefinite and puzzling, is nevertheless quite specific in its presentation of a situation, ...
The innocence of your young, former self is highlighted in the fear felt when you worry about the line of turnips your father neglects to mention. I find this point in the poem both humorous and chilling as you sat quietly and “assumed small guilts and sat imagining the black hole in the barracks”. The humour I feel is in the fact that nothing bad could ever come of this one line of turnips, but the darker side is that even the mind of a young boy in Northern Ireland immediately resorts to imagining the cells to which his father may be taken. Even when the constable leaves his presence still resonates and as the bicycle pulled off it “ticked. ticked, ticked” representing the ticking time bomb that lies between the Protestants and the Catholics that lived in Northern Ireland at the time. This poem appeals to me greatly as I highly admire your ability to link the innocence of childhood to the political nature of the Troubles of the time.
Your love poem “The Skunk” is unconventional to say the least! I can’t imagine any woman who would appreciate being compared to a skunk, but in your mastery of poetry and the English language you manage to not only make it a welcomed comparison but even an erotic and sensual one. The first image you present us with is the figure of the skunk bounding along in front of you: “up, black, striped and damasked”.These words create not only a sense of movement but also a sense of excitement. I admire how you represent your longing for your wife with the anticipation of the skunk and how you blur the line that separates them to satisfy your emotional needs. Also admirable in my opinion is how you never introduce the foul smell that skunks are usually known for throughout the entire poem, instead you confront us with the starkly contrasting smells of fruits: “small oranges loomed in the orange tree” and the exotic fragrance of the “tang of eucalyptus”. These sensual images portray the richness and beauty of your love for your wife. And then in your closing stanza, your memories reawaken: “stirred by the sootfall of your clothes at bedtime”, what a truly magical image! The “sootfall” gives the reader such a feeling of lightness and feminity, yet it is such an ordinary everyday image that, in our lives, we either would not notice it or even appreciate it. The line from the previous stanza “mythologized, demythologised” really sums up what you’ve done with this image, and with the poem in its entirety: Marriage is truly one of the most ordinary, extraordinary things that one can experience in life.
The Essay on Hughes Poetry Poem Line Music
Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, in February 1, 1902. His parents divorced when he was a child. His father moved to Mexico and Hughes moved to Lincoln, Illinois to live with his mother. Hughes is one of the most popular writers from the Harlem Renaissance period. His works include " The Negro Speak Of Rivers," Trumpet Player," Mother To Son," I, Too," and more. In his poetry, Hughes ...
In conclusion I must say that I particularly enjoyed studying your poetry on this course because I greatly admire the techniques and styles you use as a poet. You make the simple, special. You make the ordinary, extraordinary. You make the usual, unusual. You make poetry, an experience.
Yours admirably,
Éanán Finnegan