In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty.
Seamus Heaney
"I like the in-betweenness of up and down, of being on the earth and of the heavens. I think that's where poetry should dwell, between the dream world and the given world, because you don't just want photography, and you don't want fantasy either." Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney’s “Cassandra”
from “Mycenae Outlook”
II. Cassandra
No such thing as innocent bystanding.
Her soiled vest, her little breasts, her clipped, devast-
ated, scabbed punk head, the char-eyed
famine gawk— she looked camp-fucked
and simple. People could feel
a missed trueness in them focus,
a homecoming in her dropped-wing, half-calculating
bewilderment. No such thing as innocent.
Old King Cock- of-the-Walk was back,
King Kill- the-Child- and-Take
What-Comes, King Agamem- non’s drum-
balled, old buck’s stride was back. And then her Greek
words came, a lamb at lambing time,
bleat of clair- voyant dread, the gene-hammer
and tread of the roused god. And a result-
ant shock desire in bystanders to do it to her
there and then. Little rent cunt of their guilt:
in she went to the knife, to the killer wife,
to the net over her and her slaver, the Troy reaver,
saying, ‘A wipe of the sponge, that’s it.
The shadow-hinge swings unpredict- ably and the light’s
blanked out.’
—Seamus Heaney
gravity-rainbow reblogged
“The erotics of composition are essential to the process, some prereflective excitation and orientation, some sense that your own little verse-craft can dock safe and sound at the big quay of language. And this is true for translators as it is for poets attempting original work. It is one thing to find lexical meanings for the words and to have some feel for how the metre might go, but it is quite another thing to find the tuning fork that will give you the note and pitch for the overall music of the work.”
— Seamus Heaney, from his Translator’s Note in Beowulf
gravity-rainbow reblogged
Settled on this
Translated and read by Seamus Heaney!
gravity-rainbow reblogged
It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning. For every one of us, living in this world means waiting for our end. Let whoever can win glory before death. When a warrior is gone, that will be his best and only bulwark.
Seamus Heaney - Beowulf
gravity-rainbow reblogged
That was their way, their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts they remembered hell.
Seamus Heaney - Beowulf
“I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives—
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.”
Seamus Heaney, from “Clearances,” a sonnet sequence in memory of his mother.
He would drink by himself
And raise a weathered thumb
Towards the high shelf,
Calling another rum
And blackcurrant, without
Having to raise his voice,
Or order a quick stout
By a lifting of the eyes
And a discreet dumb-show
Of pulling off the top;Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
"Walk on air against your better judgement.”
~ Seamus Heaney
‘I have begun to think of life
as a series of ripples
widening out from an original center.‘
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Apr 13 1939 - Aug 30 2013
You lose more of yourself than you redeem Doing the decent thing.
That was their way, their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts they remembered hell.
Seamus Heaney - Beowulf
Human beings suffer, They torture one another, They get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song Can fully right a wrong Inflicted and endured. The innocent in gaols Beat on their bars together. A hunger-striker's father Stands in the graveyard dumb. The police widow in veils Faints at the funeral home. History says, don't hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme. So hope for a great sea-change On the far side of revenge. Believe that further shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracle And cures and healing wells. Call miracle self-healing: The utter, self-revealing Double-take of feeling. If there's fire on the mountain Or lightning and storm And a god speaks from the sky That means someone is hearing The outcry and the birth-cry Of new life at its term.
Seamus Heaney
It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning. For every one of us, living in this world means waiting for our end. Let whoever can win glory before death. When a warrior is gone, that will be his best and only bulwark.
Seamus Heaney - Beowulf
Settled on this
Translated and read by Seamus Heaney!