Poetry On Sunday.

Sunday afternoon in late September and the weather has changed. It will soon be the days of the leaves. The sun tried  to come out earlier but it looked at the sky and changed its mind. I won’t be going far today. Earlier I listened to Desert Island Discs on the radio. The guest was Thom Yorke from the band Radiohead. It was quite interesting, and I enjoyed the music choices which included Sidney Bechet and Nina Simone. I’m a bit bored now, so I thought I’d write a wee blog. I’ll tell you about something which came in the post a few days ago. It is a letterpress print of a poem by Seamus Heaney. As you probably know Letterpress is a form of printing that was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in about 1450 and was the most used method of printing right up to the 20^th century. Letterpress is enjoying a comeback in recent years as an artisan craft. It is very nice, and I might have it framed when I get around to it. The poem is called Terminus. It came with a well-presented booklet containing an essay by Heaney called Something to Write Home About. It was published recently by Faber & Faber to mark the 80^th anniversary of Seamus Heaney's birth in 1939.

I have read this poem before, but I must admit that I didn’t understand it. It would have helped if we had studied the early work of Heaney at school, but we didn’t. I have always found poets like him too high brow and my concentration drifts away. I wish I had worked hard at school and gone to university and studied English & Irish literature with a good teacher. My writing might have been a lot better as well. Some poets I can understand immediately, like John Cooper Clarke for instance, but Heaney is a different kettle of fish altogether. It is like comparing pop music to Mozart. Luckily for me in this case the essay perfectly compliments the poem. After reading the essay I can appreciate and understand the poem a lot better. For example, Northern Irish words like hoke which I hadn’t heard before are explained. Also, a march drain is understood and who was the earl on horseback in midstream. I hope Faber do more of this sort of thing. It is very educational for the likings of me.

I can’t think of anything else to say about Terminus except thank you Seamus Heaney for explaining it to me. Anyway, the sun seems to be peeking through the clouds again. I think I’ll go and feed my shubunkins. See you later.