“He’s not averse to symbolising the process of poetry”
The BBC report on the presentation of the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime’s achievement in literature to Seamus Heaney includes an audio clip of an interview on Radio 4′s Front Row – more Heaney interviews here. The Guardian adds the detail of the two poems Heaney chose to represent his body of work – The Underground and A Drink of Water. There’s the river in the trees.. Meanwhile, John Sutherland asks £40,000? Is that all? Although it should be noted that there was the additional £12,500 Clarissa Luard Award given, at Seamus Heaney’s discretion, to Poetry Aloud!
Mr Heaney
You bored me in the summer sun
Clabber-strapped and tinker-tied
Drowsing in the music room.
You burnt my eyes to navel-guise,
Weevil-gouged bleak bowls
In blistered Botanic at Examen Fest.
You hoisted Gae’s old Bolga up
And dumped it on my office desk.
I lost a tooth, it bled like Set.
And now the expectation is
I’ll blink to view the bauble laurel?
Have at ye, sir, but one – blink.
Good R4 interview Pete. I’m halfway through ‘Stepping Stones’, Denis O’Driscoll’s book of interviews with Heaney. Comes highly recommended.
“Good R4 interview Pete.”
Indeed, Paddy.
I thought it was worth a special mention.
There are a couple of posts in the Slugger archive on Stepping Stones..
“If I do write something, Whatever it is, I’ll be writing for myself.”
And
“and don’t those terms fairly put the wind up you?”
Thanks for the links Pete.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
This poem is proper
It rhymes, anyhoo.
…and by composing it I have now proven myself a superior poet to Nobel Laureate, Séamus Heaney – if only in the eyes of Archie Purple.
Well, a guy’s gotta start small.