SEAMUS HEANEY

THE EARLY PURGES

 I was six when I first saw kittens drown.

Dan Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits',

Into a bucket; a frail metal sound,

Soft paws scraping like mad. But their tiny din

Was soon soused. They were slung on the snout             

Of the pump and the water pumped in.

'Sure, isn't it better for them now?' Dan said.

Like wet gloves they bobbed and shone till he sluiced

Them out on the dunghill, glossy and dead.

Suddenly frightened, for days I sadly hung

Round the yard, watching the three sogged remains

Turn mealy and crisp as old summer dung

Until I forgot them. But the fear came back

When Dan trapped big rats, snared rabbits, shot crows

Or, with a sickening tug, pulled old hens' necks.

Still, living displaces false sentiments

And now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown

I just shrug, 'Bloody pups'. It makes sense:

'Prevention of cruelty' talk cuts ice in town

Where they consider death unnatural

But on well-run farms pests have to be kept down.

DIGGING

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it. 

They were published from “Death of a Naturalist” (1966) <(URL:http://www.poemhunter.com/seamus-heaney/poems/poet-6714/page-1/)> 
 
 
 

I am going to analyse two poems of Seamus Heaney, “ The early Puges” and “Digging”. I would try to comment some of his conflicts, problems etc because his nationality (Irish). These problems or conflicts are represented in many of his works. I have chose those poems because Seamus apart from his nationality problems he reflects other important problems as his childhood or his family.

            Seamus Heaney was born in April, 1939. He grew up as a country boy, in the midst of a traditional, rural environment and family. His father’s family was more traditional than his mother’s family, which was more connected with the modern world than with the traditional rural one. This fact has always influenced Heaney´s poetry, within this mixture of the Gaelic past and the Ulster of the industrial Revolution; and this tension between past and present is always latent in his poetry. Despite that his family left the farm on 1953, his mind was always connected with the rural world and rural CountyDerry is the "country of his mind" where much of Heaney's poetry is still grounded. So, somehow, he has always considered himself a “country boy”. However, when he won a scholarship to St Columb´s College, he had to leave all the rural atmosphere behind him. This event also contributed to the development of his poetry because he always had that divergence between that old traditional life emotion and the fact that he decided to dedicate his life to studies and art. Another important issue that is reflected in his poetry is that he was born into a society deeply divided along religious and political lines, specially, after the 1970´s, when the conflict took a violent dimension. He had a deep preoccupation with the question of poetry's responsibilities and prerogatives in the world, since poetry is poised between a need for creative freedom within itself and a pressure to express the sense of social obligation felt by the poet as citizen.  He adopted a Pro-Irish patriotic and nationalistic perspective against British imperialism as he demonstrates in some patriotic poems, but the fact that the struggle was so violent, affected also his mood and poetry. So the main topics he deals within his poetry are conflicts between: Nature and Urban world; Tradition and Modern World; Past and Present; Ireland and England; and some romantic poems dedicated to and influenced by the figure of his wife: Marie Delvin-Heaney.<(http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1995/heaneybio.html)>

Firstly his poem “The early Purges” is divided in 7 triplets. The rhythm is regular. Along this poem, Heaney reflects his obsession with life and death using a metaphorical meaning. The author relates one experience he had when he was 6 years old when his kittens drowned and “Dan Taggart” threw them on the garbage telling him: “the scraggy wee shits are better now in the place they are than before”. That event marked him, first because the scene was so cruel, and then because he did not understand it. The author uses an unreal name “Dan” to represent a character in the poem. In the last stanza the author reflects another meaning that the poem has when the author compares the urban life and the rural life, where the city people do not understand that cruelty with animals that the rural people employ to prevent illness. In my opinion, with this last stanza, the author is trying to explain the hypocrisy of town people because what they do is exactly the same, not only with animals, but with other people.

Secondly his poem “Digging” deals about the confrontation between the rural traditional hard-working life and the modern and artistic way of living he lives, I have said before.Along the poem, Heaney compares his vision of his pen between his fingers, as a vision of poetry, as the vision of his father working. 

This poem is divided into 2 parts. Each part starts with a couplet and then develops into an iambic structure. So the poem has a very regular structure. The poet uses very descriptive verses to describe the figure of his father’s work. The descriptions of the scene; sounds, rural elements, actions etc create a strong visual image of what his father is doing exactly and what he feels. After these descriptive verses, also the author points one of his common topics along his poetry: the obsession with the past, where the author also talks about his grandfather, as a representation of the family pride. Heaney relates a past image with his grandfather, in which he was carrying him milk and his grandfather drank it and looked at him as he could smell the turf and the potatoes. All these very descriptive images create in the author a sensible humour, specially dealing with the fact that he could never be as them and he has to be “happy” just doing what he knows to do (handling a pen and writing poetry). So, he can use that ability to praise his family and the past.

Finally, as we can observe Heaney is a poet who takes into account the familiar relationships and his childhood in many senses. Also he expresses his feelings and fears about Ireland and the Irish people in his poems. In my opinion Heaney in his poems is sometimes dramatic because he tells the most insignificant facts in a high tone and with too emphasis that they really have. He emphasizes his life as “country boy” in his poetry to express his really knowledge about Ireland.

 
 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Official Web Site of the Nobel Foundation, “Seamus Heaney”, NobelPrize,org, Dr. Alf A. Lindberg,
20^thAugust 2006<(http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1995/heaneybio.html)>


 
 

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