Semaus Heaney RIP

crashplan

IRISH POET SEAMUS HEANEY has died at the age of 74. From Here

RIP

JP Liz V1

RIP

Gamayun

R.I.P

Sad news, I'll probably give his Poet and the Piper CD a spin tonight.

Here's a nice montage of Digging readings I found on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIzJgbNANzk

Lady Chatterton

The first time I became aware of Seamus Heaney was when I was a very young child. One day our teacher read 'Midterm Break' for us and I cried buckets. The last line - 'A four foot box, a foot for every year' is a line that has stayed with me ever since, it is so devastatingly sad.

Up until I heard this poem, I thought poetry was very happy clappy but after hearing 'Midterm Break', I realised that poetry could be very powerful and it could fill you with all sorts of deep emotions. I adore poetry to this day but it all started with Seamus Heaney.

So wherever you are Seamus - Thank you!


Mid-Term Break

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

by

Seamus Heaney (RIP)

Tom Joad

MrsD007 wrote: »

The first time I became aware of Seamus Heaney was when I was a very young child. One day our teacher read 'Midterm Break' for us and I cried buckets. The last line - 'A four foot box, a foot for every year' is a line that has stayed with me ever since, it is so devastatingly sad.

Up until I heard this poem, I thought poetry was very happy clappy but after hearing 'Midterm Break', I realised that poetry could be very powerful and it could fill you with all sorts of deep emotions. I adore poetry to this day but it all started with Seamus Heaney.

So wherever you are Seamus - Thank you!


Seamus Heaney (RIP)

Great post - likewise Midterm Break is the first poem that ever resonated with me - that last line chilled me to the bone the first time I read that poem as a young teenager.

Lexe

Likewise, Midterm Break broke my wee heart when I was 12 and the realization of the power of words has stayed with me every since. He was a real treasure to this country

chasmcb

Lovely pic here (by Joe Shaughnessy of The Connacht Tribune) of Heaney on the beach at Salthill earlier this year to mark the unveiling of a plaque with his poem 'Girls Bathing, Galway'.

http://sphotos-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/1003366_712197758806005_883693505_n.jpg

Ann22

I too was moved by this poem when I was in 6th class...as were both my sons. True story it was too. Hope he's with his little brother now.