Seamus Heaney and the Music of What Happens

Adam Low's documentary on Seamus Heaney for Arena went out on the BBC recently, and last night at the Irish Film Institute in Dublin it received a big-screen showing to a packed audience, including many members of the poet's family. Afterwards (pictured above) Professor Margaret Kelleher, Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature & Drama at UCD and Chair of the board of the IFI, led a discussion with Marie and Catherine Heaney, as well as Adam Low. 

There's no doubt that Low's work is the most powerful and comprehensive treatment of the poet on film. A skilful tracing of Heaney's life and work since the earliest days, one of its strengths is how it roots (a Heaney-esque metaphor) the work in Bellaghy, and in his family. Of course so many poems do explore this, but it is particularly moving to see so much on film, including Heaney's brothers (who themselves read some of the poems) and several family photographs. 'Mid-Term Break', a staple of schools all over Ireland, gains extra force from hearing of the impact on the family, and from his brother remembering the moment the terrible event of the death happened.

A second great strength is how the poetry is so present - often literally in front of us (particularly effective on the huge IFI screen), and also in the voices of Heaney's family. But above all it is the extraordinary voice of the man himself (surely the best reader of his own work in recent times) which stands out: tender, supple, un-forced.

Much of the music from the film (see the title) comes from Heaney's selection on 'Desert Island Discs'.

In the discussion afterwards Marie Heaney said it struck her strongly how much this was a love story (they were married for over 50 years), and one of the loveliest sights in the film was the handwritten book that her husband gave her in Christmas 1983 with all the love poems he had written her ('because he forgot to get me a Christmas present'). He was, she said, not 'humble', but definitely 'unassuming': he knew how good he was. But still she, as his first reader (what an extraordinary position for her to be in) was the most important critic, and he knew her so well that any tiny hesitation in her reaction to a new poem was followed by 'So what don't you like about it?' He said it was like her putting a coin between her teeth to see if was the real thing.

She was stunned when the New York Times, announcing Séamus's death, had a picture of him 'above the fold' on the front page, an indication of his extraordinary reach (see below). That reach was also reinforced by the silence and then applause of 80,000 football supporters in Croke Park in the days following his death.

Marie Heaney also said after the showing that the film impressed on her once again how terrible the Troubles were, how vital it was that nothing (current events...) should open up any repetition of that terrible time.

That Croke Park applause was echoed in the IFI last night after the film: tribute to the skill of Adam Low and his team in telling the story, and of course to the man himself and his work.


The film is available on BBC iPlayer for those who can access it.

Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again

The new National Library of Ireland exhibition Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again at the Bank of Ireland Cultural Centre in the centre of Dublin is superb, and the perfect outing for those who have studied Heaney. Below is a series of tweets about the exhibition, with photographs taken on the day it opened.


Seamus Heaney exhibition

Seamus Heaney, RIP

'Seamus Heaney is trending on Twitter'. Not a sentence anyone could have predicted, but yesterday morning, Twitter suddenly lit up with sadness and shock from Ireland and around the world, and today the world feels like a diminished place.

What accounts for such a reaction? Of course Seamus Heaney was read more widely than any other contemporary poet, and his work has become a staple of examination boards (a dismal fate he accepted with characteristic grace and good humour), but the genuine and universal outpouring of appreciation needs more explanation. Some of us were lucky enough to have met him (myself first over 35 years ago as a 15-year old fan, when he treated me as he did everyone, whatever their status - with attention, charm and graciousness), and everyone who did attested to his warmth. He was extraordinarily generous with his time (and somehow managed to balance this with a prolific writing career) and was always humble, kind, twinkle-eyed. It is very rare to meet someone about whom no-one has a bad word to say (even, yesterday, in the frequently virulent and hyperbolic online world). 

Many English teachers have expressed how Heaney meant so much more to them than being 'merely' an author they taught (see John Tomsett and Evelyn O'Connor, for instance), and whose poems made particularly personal connections, and those of us who have been teaching 'a while' have grown up with him as pupil, student and teacher. He became part of our intellectual DNA, in my case for decades.

In an interview with Robert McCrum, Heaney said about Ted Hughes that he "always felt safer for Ted's friendship somehow. He was foundational to me ... he transmitted a desire to be more yourself to yourself." Now that Heaney is gone, the words might refer to him too. So many people are reacting almost as if a parent had died, and this is right: Heaney has been there for so long, was so steady, so committed to his craft, so unwavering in what he did through the lunatic years of the Troubles and the Celtic Tiger, that we can all feel a little abandoned for a while. Belinda McKeon's emotional piece in the Paris Review captures this feeling well. And Fintan O'Toole writes today on the front page of the Irish Times: He turned our disgrace into grace, our petty hatreds into epic generosity, our dull clichés into questioning eloquence, the leaden metal of brutal inevitability into the gold of pure possibility. That is quite a loss.

Heaney's last poem in his last collection, Human Chain, was written for his granddaughter. The beautiful "A Kite for Aibhín" (which you can hear him reading here, near the end of a Guardian podcast) sees him back at at the beginning, at Anahorish on a hill, 'Air from another life and time and place'. They watch the kite as it 'hovers, tugs, veers, dives askew, / Lifts itself, goes with the wind until / It rises to loud cheers from us below' and then the string breaks and 'separate, elate - / The kite takes off, itself alone, a windfall.' It's as if he planned that as a final image; the strings have finally broken and as we now cheer his career he is 'separate, elate', himself alone.

A Kite for Aibhín

A Kite for Aibhín

A Kite for Aibhín

What he leaves behind is of course is what's photographed on this desk at the top of this post (and thankfully there are happy years ahead of rereading and rediscovery), and after yesterday's shock fades what will also be left is a sense of deep gratitude for this man's work and his life.

JMG

Below, a Storify of many of yesterday's reactions, including plenty of excellent links to material for teaching.
 

Podcast 30: Seamus Heaney's 'Mossbawn: Sunlight'

Our 30th podcast is one of an occasional series on poems on the Irish Leaving Certificate English course. This examines Seamus Heaney's poem 'Sunlight', one of the dedicatory poems called 'Mossbawn', which open his 1975 collection North.

'Sunlight' is a poem of great warmth, recreating a scene from his childhood on the family farm, suffused with the love of and for his aunt Mary. However, it also prefigures disturbance and the eventual disappearance of such an idyll in a more violent society. Listen to the poet reading the poem above, and the commentary below.

   
   
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You can listen to these talks via the player on each post, or the 'widget' on the sidebar to the right, or by visiting our podcast page here (if you have iTunes on your computer you can also subscribe by clicking here, and so download our episodes to your MP3 player, or by searching for 'SCC English' in the iTunes Store).

Seamus Heaney: a life in rhyme

Robert McCrum has a long interview with Seamus Heaney in today's Observer magazine, called 'A Life in Rhyme':-

For someone who has been so remorselessly scrutinised, Heaney is still something of an enigma. He works hard to make "famous" seem normal. Unfailingly courteous and attentive, he can also be grave, remote and occasionally stern, always watching himself, like the king of a vulnerable monarchy.

In keeping with that vigilance, and a well-defended uncertainty, Heaney is always asking himself the essential questions articulated in Preoccupations, his collected essays. "How should a poet properly live and write? What is his relationship to be to his own voice, his own place, his literary heritage and his contemporary world?"

Read the full article here.

'Death of a Naturalist'

Pictured, our first edition copy of Seamus Heaney's first book, Death of a Naturalist, perceptively bought for the Masterman Library straight after its publication in 1966 by the then Librarian, George White.

The flap reads:- "We are very pleased to publish this first volume of poems by Seamus Heaney, a young poet who already has an eagerly-appreciative audience in his native Ireland. Seamus Heaney grew up in a farm in Derry; and it is in particular the acute observation of the countryside and its people that gives his poetry its distinctive strength."

The book cost 18 shillings.

'A Call' by Seamus Heaney

Our 51st Poem of the Week is Seamus Heaney's poignant 'A Call', from his 1996 collection The Spirit Level. In Chapel this morning, Mr Girdham spoke about Heaney's contribution to contemporary Irish literature, as a way of marking his recent 70th birthday, and read 'A Call', 'St Kevin and the Blackbird' and 'Thatcher'. The Library is currently displaying its collection of books by Heaney, including our first edition of Death of a Naturalist. Below, Seamus Heaney speaks at his birthday celebration some weeks ago.

Dublin Review of Books

The spring edition of the excellent online magazine, the Dublin Review of Books, is out now here. Barra Ó Seaghdha, in his review of Stepping Stones, Seamus Heaney's interviews with Dennis O'Driscoll, comments that

O’Driscoll raises the matter of the many conferences, launches, conferrings and other public events in which Heaney participates. 'Ongoing civic service, I suppose,' Heaney responds. The grace and patience with which he handles such demands on his time and energy point to another aspect of the poetic vocation as he conceives it. Life has been good to him in many ways; poetry has enriched his existence both privately and in the social and intellectual worlds it has opened up to him. In return, though under no obligation to roll up his shirtsleeves and take part in the meitheal, Heaney performs his neighbourly duty as few in his position would.

Elsewhere, John McAuliffe reviews Austin Clarke's Collected Poems, and there are plenty of other interesting articles.

Seamus Heaney at 70

Tomorrow is Seamus Heaney's 70th birthday, and our national broadcaster is really doing him proud. RTE have a superb microsite called 'Heaney at 70' here, and there's plenty of interesting material, and news of a wide array of events, including readings, television programmes, archive interviews, music and more, including Peter Sirr's essay 'In Step With What Escaped Me' (an introduction to the CD set of eleven books, which we'll be getting for the Library). At the bottom of this post is the flier, as seen on Issuu (click for a larger view, and scroll through the pages), Throughout the day RTE Radio 1 on longwave 252 will be broadcasting the entire collection, as read by the poet himself.

So congratulations to RTE on a magnificent effort to mark this occasion, and of course birthday congratulations to the magnificent poet himself. (The Irish Times special tribute is here, including an article by our friend Niall MacMonagle from Wesley College on Heaney in the classroom)

Open publication - Free publishing - More poetry

Poetry Round-up

A reminder to all pupils that entries for this year's Peter Dix Memorial Senior Prize for Poetry (left) and Junior Poetry Prize, are due by the last day of term. See noticeboards for details.

The poet Louise C. Callaghan has been working with our Primary class over the last couple of days. Congratulations to Louise on being shortlisted for the Strokestown Poetry Prize (English language section). The Strokestown International Festival takes place from May 1st to May 3rd. Next term one of our podcasts will be an interview with Louise about her own poetry, and the ways she runs her workshops.

Seamus Heaney has just been awarded the David Cohen Award for Literature; part of the award is the chance to nominate the winner of the Clarissa Luard Award, which is for a literature organisation which encourages young people. Our Nobel Laureate has chosen Poetry Aloud, which our pupils have taken part in for several years - a fine and typically thoughtful choice. He talked about his choice on BBC Radio 4's 'Front Row' this week (you can listen again on the site, and via their podcast), and said that learning poetry and speaking it through Poetry Aloud provided an 'inner grace' for its participants.

Books of the Year

Many thanks to our colleague Dr Garry Bannister, Head of our Irish Department, who in a cross-curricular spirit has responded to our call for visitors' Books of the Year recommendations. He writes:-

For those interested in modern Gaelic culture An Leabhar Mór - which has some fine poetry in it, visual art stuff, calligraphy and the like. Beautifully produced. I'm not really into sport much but Sonia: My Story is a tremendous insight into the life behind the public life of Sonia O'Sullivan. She comes across as a very sincere and passionate woman who struggled hard to achieve the sporting achievements that seemed to come so naturally to her. It's a very compelling and readable book. I was a bit disappointed in Stepping Stones but maybe I have already read too much about Seamus Heaney. I didn't feel that the book conveyed the great humanity of this amazing Irish poet. On the other hand I was very impressed with Dermot Keogh's Jack Lynch - this is a really insightful portrait of the man and his times. I remember well the Jack Lynch period, the fragile and disintegrating political situation in Northern Ireland. I would say that Keogh gives a balanced and very authoritative account - but mainly, it is a riveting read.

There have been some good reads from the fiction-shelf too. For thrills and spills and incredible suspense Arctic Drift by Clive Cussler and Maeve Binchy's Heart & Soul provides the usual light-handed Binchy soapy magic. I used to get a lot of flak from my family for reading so much of Maeve's work but I still enjoy them and continue to recognise so many of people in her books. She is so very readable. I think there should be two new words coined - a 'Binchy' for a book that everybody reads but doesn't admit to reading and a 'Bragg' for a book that everyone has on their shelf but nobody reads or finishes reading.

Finally, Philip Roth's Indignation is one of those all-and-everything fictional creations covering a young guy's development, his education, his inexperience, his sexual awakening, his courage and the understandable mistakes he makes along the way. It's quite clever in places and rather witty.

From the Republic of Conscience

Today's Irish Times has an A2 poster marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with at the bottom Seamus Heaney's poem 'From the Republic of Conscience', useful for classroom display.

Inside the paper there's a supplement with reflections by 31 writers on the Declaration, and an introduction by Heaney. These pieces can all be read on Amnesty International's website here, including essays by Joseph O'Connor, Roddy Doyle, Claire Kilroy, Colm Toibin, Anne Enright and Jennifer Johnston - again, plenty of material for Leaving Cert language work.

Teaching English, Spring 2008

The latest edition of the excellent Teaching English magazine edited by Kevin McDermott (we featured this time last year) from the SLSS English Support Service is just out, and is dedicated to the memory of the late John Devitt, Head of English at the Mater Dei Institute of Education. It includes a tribute by Larry Cotter (a former student of John), an article on him by Breda O'Brien, a poem by his friend Seamus Heaney ('Quitting Time', from District and Circle), an interview with and article by Jude Collins, and another interview with teacher Frances Rock from Dundalk. The cover features Pieter Brueghel the Elder's Netherlandish Proverbs (1559, above).

Below, the magazine displayed by Issuu. Scroll through the pages, click on a page for larger view, and you can click again for fullscreen reading.

Haiku

II formers in John Fanagan's class have recently been experimenting with haikus, such as

Lingfan Gao -

Soft are the footsteps
Walking towards the cradle
Not to wake him up.

The spectators come
As sweat pours down from your head.
But the show must start.

(Lingfan played at the music concert on Saturday night - possibly an inspiration?)

Eamonn McKee -

On the sodden earth
The heather is fluttering
Like a butterfly.

On a rugged wall,
The ivy is quivering
In the endless gust.

and Peter Marshall

Frogs jumping around,
Frogs hopping away from snakes,
Frogs doing cool tricks.

For more haikus from members of the class, click here.

Coincidentally, recently Seamus Heaney wrote in the Guardian about Japanese poetry :

In the years since these early developments, the haiku form and the generally Japanese effect have been a constant feature of poetry in English. The names of Basho and Issa and Buson have found their way into our discourse to the extent that we in Ireland have learnt to recognise something Japanese in the earliest lyrics of the native tradition. The hermit poets who wrote in Old Irish in the little monasteries were also masters of the precise and suggestive.

Heaney's full essay is here.

Scaffolding

The eleventh Poem of the Week is 'Scaffolding', by Seamus Heaney. Pictured, the scaffolding currently around the Cadogan Building, as its refurbishment and conversion into a music and performance centre continues (due to finish in December).

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job's done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.