Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996
A European Literature, Cultural, Literature book. Late August, given heavy rain and sunFor a full week, the...
In "Digging", the first poem in Opened Ground, Heaney likens his pen to both spade and gun. With these metaphors in place, he makes clear his difficult poetic task: to delve into the past, both personal and historic, while remaining ever mindful of the potentially fatal power of language. Born and raised in Northern Ireland, where any hint of Gaelic tradition in one's speech was considered a political act, Heaney is all too aware of the dire consequences of speaking one's mind. Indeed, during times of...
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- Filetype: PDF
- Pages: 464 pages
- ISBN: 9780374526788 / 374526788
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More About Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996
What do we say any more to conjure the salt of our earth? So much comes and is gone that should be crystal and kept, and amicable weathers that bring up the grain of things, their tang of season and store, are all the packing well get. Seamus Heaney, Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996 The main thing is to write for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust that imagines its haven like your hands at night dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast. Seamus Heaney, Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996 Late August, given heavy rain and sunFor a full week, the blackberries would ripen.At first, just one, a glossy purple clotAmong others, red, green, hard as a knot.You ate that first one and its flesh was sweetLike thickened wine: summer's blood was in itLeaving stains upon the tongue and lust forPicking. Then red ones inked up and that hungerSent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-potsWhere briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drillsWe trekked and picked until the cans were full,Until the tinkling...
Worth it for the poems from North alone. Scary good. Heaney is a masterful poet of ambivalence and ambiguity, two themes that he often reflects on as he navigates irish politics and attempts to reconcile the Ireland of old with modernity. I feel like I've discovered an honest to god treasure in this book. Beautiful beautiful poetry... Re-reading as homage. God, the hard-edged music of him! Lines you feel in your mouth like chewy, brackish bread. Interestingly, for me (and possibly for any of you who read my Recognitions review), is that the location of my first sighting of the ship in the sky was here (from Lightenings): The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise... Heaney's diction reminds me that there are many small, old words which I do not know. When I read his poetry, I sense that he loves our language, but especially the kinds of words which are timeworn and can be held in the hand, words which, like old, oiled tools, have served and been put to good use. His metaphors rise up out of the...
