Re: BANANAFISH digest 293
helena kim (helenak@geocities.com)
Tue, 07 Apr 1998 01:43:29 +0100
hello people.
lesley wrote:
I love the old JJ. What do you think of Samus Heaghney? He was here last
ahhhh. seamus heaney. one of those poets that was *destroyed* for me by my primary
school education. i can still remember being forced, aged eight, to learn
'blackberry picking' by rote.
ten years later i can still recite the effing thing too. (and when asked to, it
*must* be done with exaggerated eight-year-old poetry reading enunciation...)
'blackberry picking, by seamus heaney
late august,
given heavy rain and sun,
the blackberries would ripen.
at first one,
a glossy purple clot,
among others,
red, green,
hard as a knot....' etc etc ad infinitum.
and it's a depressing poem for a little kid. it's all about how when you pick
hundreds of blackberries they're really yummy and everything, but after a few days
in your bathtub, they go all manky and moudly and gross. and how nothing lasts
and, yeah, you may think things are great now, but BLACKBERRIES DON'T LAST
FOREVER, KIDS!
from a more adult perspective:
seamus heaney is on all the curriculae in this country. mainly because, as irish
people, we are all supposed to relate to themes like potato peeling, and drowning
puppies, and ploughing, and other such rural pursuits. the thing is, i've lived
all my life in suburban and urban dublin, and i just find it terrifically
diffucult to *get* alot of his work. same goes for patrick kavanagh. [1]
it's the fact that his subject matter is of *zero* interest to me, and the fact
that i was force fed his work for my entire education, that turns me off heaney.
i have an immense amount of *respect* for the man and his work, but i never have
been, and never will be, able (or open enough?) to appreciate it fully.
:helena, resident oirish egocentric
[1] although i hate such poems as 'stony grey soil' i really like the later poems
about the canals and all... my favourite kavanagh would probably be 'in memory of
my father'.
ObSal: I reread RHTRBC last night. It has reaffirmed Muriel's position as my
current favourite Salinger character.