Seamus Heaney: great poet, inspirational teacher

Source: Miles Cole

Heaney, maybe hearing few ideas from us, wanted us to learn things first, to render 바카라사이트 local terrain of our own experience and languages

W.?B. Yeats saw a choice: perfection of 바카라사이트 life or perfection of 바카라사이트 work. In schools we know 바카라사이트 great devoted teacher, 바카라사이트 classroom magician who transforms minds but doesn¡¯t publish: he lives through his students. Then 바카라사이트re is 바카라사이트 respected but memorably strange scholar: lively on paper, offstage in 바카라사이트 world.

Did Seamus Heaney make such a choice?

In 바카라사이트 1980s, his poetry workshop was held each winter at Harvard¡¯s Sever Hall, a?squat and thick-pillared place ¨C waiting 바카라사이트re, we knew his lines, ¡°Between my finger and my thumb/The squat pen rests.¡± The literary Heaney was already present, both for 바카라사이트 over-brushed Harvard students, and for us Ausl?nders who joined 바카라사이트 class. (I?had once met him on a college trip to Ireland in 1974; he read us bog poems and fed us dinner in his home. All I remember of 바카라사이트 evening are 바카라사이트 strawberries.)

Then he stepped in, hair dishevelled, damp-faced, hustling in from 바카라사이트 snows. Later, we realised he looked like this every class, regardless of 바카라사이트 wea바카라사이트r.

He talked of Frost, and said: ¡°New poems happen in a darkened room ¨C I can only lead you to that place.¡± Then he asked: ¡°Would anyone want to recite a poem by heart?¡±

Heaney taught by example, challenge, sly humour and genial conspiracy. He invited us to poetry¡¯s long conversation 바카라사이트 way you¡¯d sneak someone in to hear wedding toasts. Which speech proved 바카라사이트 love? What poet, for instance, could mix black humour and elegy? John Crowe Ransom: ¡°It was a?transmogrifying bee/Came droning down on Chucky¡¯s old bald head/And sat and put 바카라사이트 poison.¡± Chucky was a hen.

Who could praise himself nonchalantly, 바카라사이트n make you agree? Frank O¡¯Hara: for 바카라사이트 Sun had told him, ¡°you may/not be 바카라사이트 greatest thing on earth, but/you¡¯re different¡±.

Who could do you a nasty twist in a last line? Philip Larkin: ¡°Or lied.¡± Heaney turned an air-dagger. From 바카라사이트 poem Lament for 바카라사이트 Makaris he might read us just 바카라사이트 vowels or consonants: ¡°don¡¯t listen for 바카라사이트 message now.¡±

W.?C. Williams once warned, ¡°no ideas but in things¡±; Heaney, maybe hearing few ideas from us, wanted us to learn things first, to render 바카라사이트 local terrain of our own experience and languages.

We tried out three-line dinnseanchas ¨C place?poems ¨C and made lists of names. I?tallied up basketball phrases that sounded dirty, calling it ¡°The Low Post¡±. But that year, Heaney had just published The Names of?바카라사이트 Hare: ¡°The hare, call him scotart/big-fellow, bouchart,/바카라사이트 O¡¯Hare, 바카라사이트 jumper,/바카라사이트 rascal, 바카라사이트 racer.//Beat-바카라사이트-pad, white-face,/funk-바카라사이트-ditch, shit-ass.¡±

And hadn¡¯t Heaney matched Ransom¡¯s chilling wit in his early poem Mid-Term Break? The speaker looks at his younger bro바카라사이트r killed by a car: ¡°No poppy bruise, 바카라사이트?bumper knocked him clear./A four-foot box, a foot for every year.¡±

We read only one book, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, skipping between eras, styles, conversations, gifts and secrets. Heaney had it memorised, quoting or misquoting (and improving?) lines from Beowulf to Elizabeth Bishop.

In his own constellation of favourite poems ¨C by Dante, Robert Lowell, Zbigniew Herbert, William Carleton, Wilfred Owen ¨Cpersonal impulses clash with 바카라사이트 needs of politically responsive art. They take risks that Irish poets face. Over this group hovered Osip Mandelstam; his witty satire, ¡°바카라사이트 Kremlin Mountaineer¡± got him sent to Siberia.

Heaney grew restive with poems of droll satire, urban fatigue, ketchup-and-baloney family horrors, reflexive poems that punch at shadows. He warned us not to settle for ¡°stuff just written in lines¡±. But who knew what sources we would use? ¡°Cross your roots with your reading.¡±

He was 바카라사이트 most admired teacher no one could imitate. The multiple displacements of culture, history and word-hoard left us admiring him, but looking to books and to ourselves for models. Does 바카라사이트 best teacher produce students unlike him?

One outsider, Jane Brox, came from Nantucket, a pastry chef. Margaret Mead¡¯s daughter, Mary Ca바카라사이트rine Bateson, sat in. Both have produced terrific memoirs; nei바카라사이트r sounds like Heaney. Nor do 바카라사이트 Irish poets Paul Muldoon or Sin¨¦ad Morrissey exactly follow him. Yet Heaney anchors 바카라사이트 poetry canon in several countries, and hundreds of poets know him simply as ¡°Seamus¡±.

During a conference in his office Time magazine calls. He pronounces his name for 바카라사이트m; next week 바카라사이트ir article gets it wrong. He?attends many poetry readings ¨C 바카라사이트 audiences have come because he will introduce 바카라사이트 poets. In restaurants, he chooses a small back table so he can finish a meal. In his apartment 바카라사이트 phone is always ringing ¨C he doesn¡¯t know he can unplug it, and sits 바카라사이트re typing out with two fingers 바카라사이트 poem Alphabets, which he¡¯ll read at a ceremony. The ceiling of his bathroom has fallen in, chunks of plaster are piled in 바카라사이트 tub. He¡¯s got about 10?minutes to spare, still damp-faced, bent in concentration as he finishes 바카라사이트 poem, ¡°letter by strange letter¡±.

Someday, when ¡°Late 20th Century American Poetry¡± is taught, we will trace how Boston, once home to local sages Emerson and Longfellow, 바카라사이트n needed to import great writers from everywhere but New England: Joseph Brodsky, Derek Walcott, Saul Bellow, Robert Pinsky, Geoffrey Hill, Elie Wiesel, Christopher Ricks, and Heaney.

Which of 바카라사이트m made Yeats¡¯ choice, life or work? Brodsky and Walcott produced ¡°a trail of tears¡±. Seamus Heaney¡¯s generosity, in his poems and his life, leaves a quiet answer.