Seamus Heaney's Poems

Seamus Heaney's Poems

Heaney was born on April 13 1939. He was the eldest of nine children.

In modern day society it is common to have 2 or 3 children, and to

have eight or nine children is considered very unusual. Heaney lived

on the family farm, Mossbawn, about thirty miles northwest of Belfast,

in County Derry. The majority of UK residents live in urban areas, and

a small minority live in rural areas. It used to be more popular in

the past to live in a rural area. People in rural areas live, and have

lived, in a totally different culture to that of the people in urban,

industrialized areas. Heaney is Irish, which is also another culture

to that of the English, today. The conflict in Northern Ireland is

almost always a backdrop to his work, stated or implicit.

Heaney's Poems are based on real life experiences, which can be

related to in only so many ways, because of the differences in

lifestyle, culture etc. For example in 'Blackberry Picking', he is

talking of picking berries as a boy, and then hoarding them until they

rot. This may imply that he went berry picking just for the fun of it,

but today it is unusual for children to go berry picking, let alone

without an adult. The adult would have known to store the berries

properly, but in Heaney's day berry picking was a ritual for children

only.

To my knowledge, the majority of Heaney's poems were written/

published between 1960 and 1990, though many of the poems refer to his

childhood in the 1940's. Therefore, even though he is writing from a

child's perspective, he has the understanding of an adult. He is also

able to recall events in more detail. Many of the poems I have read

are about his parents or major events in his childhood, e.g.

'Foll...

... middle of paper ...

...e poems are written

specifically about his childhood, and the third one links in. They

tell of his loss of innocence, 'The Early Purges' tells us of his loss

of sentimentality, loss of idealism as he grows up 'bloody pups',

'Blackberry Picking' tells us of his loss of optimism and idealism '

each year I hoped knew they would not'

'The past is another country and they do things differently there'

This is a very true phrase. Heaney's has a very different past from

us. Therefore, his poems even though some have been written fairly

recently, can only be related to in context. People living an urban

life and childhood, would have very different views on life and death,

than Heaney does in his poems. The past is certainly another country,

they didn't have the technology that we have today. And foreign

countries also have different ways of living than we do.