A Song For Seamus Heaney

[J. Raymond Carroll]

You can see

Seamus Heaney's Son

Michael

Is a Chip off

The Old Block

Here he gives us

The Last Words

Of Famous Seamus

In his beloved Latin

Noli Timere:

Don't Be Afraid

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-23929480

Edited September 10, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Paul Muldoon,

Another Great Poet

Talks about Seamus

Muldoon tell of when he went to Visit Seamus

After His Stroke,

Famous Seamus Said:

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Reminds me of Ronald Reagan's line,

After he was shot

The bould Ronald told the Missus:

Honey I Forgot to Duck

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23928065

Edited September 11, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Seamus Heaney’s last interview

covered Homer, Virgil and Dante

Heaney’s final formal interview took place

in Paris last June

The interview with Seamus Heaney in La Revue de Belles-Lettres will be published in November

Tue, Sep 3, 2013, 08:26

In what is believed to have been

his last formal interview

with the French-languageRevue de Belles-Lettres

during his trip to Paris in June

Seamus Heaney spoke

of

journeys to the underworld

in Homer Virgil and Dante

The potency of the myth

was

he said,

a way of imagining

something ongoing

Heaven and hell

have little meaning

for most people

Heaney continued.

Christian myth is so contentious

and exhausted...

I find that there were underworld journeys

where the shades of the people you knew

are met

I find it deeply, archetypally satisfactory

No need to believe

in an afterlife

but you get

some kind

of satisfaction

I find Virgil simply beautiful

the various encounters

with the lost people

When Louis-Philippe Ruffy

who conducted the interview

learned of Heaney’s death

All of a sudden

there was an unsettling connection

between Aeneas

who goes to find his father

in the underworld

and the poet’s relationship

with his own

silent father

In my mind

I see the poet

finding his father

again

• Funeral Mass celebrates ‘the beauty of Seamus Heaney...in his being’
• Poet laid to rest under shadow of sycamore trees
• The most public of burials for the most private of men
• Poet’s code of kindness, generosity and courage was theme of his last farewell

The Irish Times takes no responsibility for the content or availability of other websites.

Heaney also spoke

of his attachment

to the earth

I think that I am basically

a ground person

you know

if it came to which element...

I am sedimentary.

That comes out earlier on

I think

with poems like Bog Land

which is about going down

and down and

finding origin there

The bog

So many exhibits

in the National Museum of Ireland

have labels saying

found in a bog

Heaney noted

I thought that’s an image

for consciousness

in this country

I contrasted the bog land

which is about remembering downwards

with the American myth of themselves

which is the prairie going outwards

Heaney also described

his progression

as a poet

since the publication

of his first collection

Death of a Naturalist

in 1966.

As a young poet

he said

you're not thinking really

of the function of poetry

you’re thinking about

the making of a poem

Events in Northern Ireland

forced him to ask

how responsive

to the conditions of the world

ought the poet to be

How much of an answer to the world

you’re in

is required

Over two decades

Heaney said he shed anxiety

and was

trusting lyric impulse

and freedom and imagination

He moved

from concern

with making a poem

to concern with

what is the obligation

to the world

you live in

to saying

to hell with it

just write

lyric poetry

He believed he had remained

in

that kind of absolved condition.

It took Ruffy and Marion Graf

the director of La Revue de Belles-Lettres

more than a year

to obtain the Heaney interview

The RBL is published twice annually

The issue on Heaney will come out

in November

and will be available through the review’s website

larevuedebelleslettres.ch.

Only four of Heaney’s books

have been translated into French,

but Graf hopes the review will

clear the way

for more.

Paris interview

Ruffy had dreamed

of interviewing Heaney

for nearly two decades

but it was the publication of

Human Chain

in 2010

that made Ruffy and Graf

determined to meet him

The interview was organised

by Sheila Pratschke

the outgoing director

of the Irish College

and took place

at the Irish Ambassador’s residence in Paris

Throughout Human Chain

there’s this idea that we are linked

Ruffy says

I see Heaney’s death

not as a rupture or a break.

I dare to hope

that these texts

will continue to create

ties between people

If you go back to the poems

he is there

and the link

is still there

It has not been broken

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/02/seamus-heaney-funeral-hundreds-mourners

Edited September 10, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

In attendance were President Michael D Higgins, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Tániste Eamon Gilmore, Northern Ireland Deputy First Minster Martin McGuinness, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, former president Mary McAleese and Dr Martin McAleese, Supreme Court Justices John Murray, John MacMenamin, Frank Clarke, British Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Dean of the diplomatic corps and papal nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown, British ambassador Dominick Chilcott, Spanish ambassador Javier Garrigues, Polish ambassador Marcin Nawrot, and former chairwoman of the Worldwide Ireland Funds Loretta Brennan Glucksman.

Also there were Minster of State Fergus O’Dowd, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, and Senators Fiach Mac Conghail andJohn Crown.

[i don't see where the United States Ambassador was there: THIS could lead to WAR!]

Writers
Poets , writers, playwrights, actors, painters and musicians present included Brian Friel, Michael Longley, Edna O’Brien,Tom Murphy, Jane Brennan, Anne Madden le Brocquy, Frank McGuinness, Miceál Ó Siadhail, Barry McGovern, Gerry McSorley, Brian Keenan, Pauline Bewick, Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullan, Paul Brady, Robert Ballagh, Paddy Moloney, John Sheahan, Shane MacGowan, Bronagh Gallagher, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Gerry Smyth, Eugene McEldowney, Des Geraghty, publisher Fergal Tobin, producer Garech de Brun.

There too were arts managers Michael Colgan, Eugene Downes, Paul McGuinness, former TCD provost Tom Mitchell, broadcasters Vincent Browne and Miriam O’Callaghan, journalist Mike Burns.

EVERYONE WAS THERE EXCEPT NORMAN MAILER

Edited September 6, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

1. Funeral service for Seamus Heaney held in Dublin - The Irish Times ...
   www.irishtimes.com/.../funeral-service-for-seamus-heaney-held-in-dubli...‎

   • 1 day ago - Funeral service for Seamus Heaney held in Dublin. 'We are keenly .... Piper Liam O'Flynn played Port na bPucai to close the service. Mourners ...

   I never met Famous Seamus,

   nor even Liam O'Flynn,

   but my brother Dermot is a musician in Dublin

   and has played as opening act

   for Liam O'Flynn.

   So if you shake my hand you will shake the hand

   that shook the hand

   that shook the hand

   of the man who shook the hand

   of Famous Seamus Himself!

   Here is Liam Og O'Flynn,

   a great man himself,

   as he plays his friend Seamus

   to eternal rest.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkHIALuieBw

   The Poet & The Piper - Seamus Heaney, Liam O Flynn

   

   http://www.taramusic.com/werecommend.htm

Edited September 4, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[David Andrews]

Uh...

[J. Raymond Carroll]

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.
by John Donne

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No." ^[1]

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ; 10
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove 15
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss. 20

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so 25
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam, 30
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35
And makes me end where I begun.

Edited September 4, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Uh...

That must have taken

quite an effort

for YOU

Mr. Andrews!

Edited September 4, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Is it yourself that's in it

Seamus?

Ma'm

I cannot bow before you

my passport is Green

[Full disclosure I am nuts about Mary McAleese]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McAleese

Edited September 10, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

When Heaney won

the Nobel Prize

in 1995

the Farmers’ Journal headline

was a marvel

of understatement

Bellaghy celebrates

as farmer’s son

wins top literary award

Yesterday Bellaghy

was in mourning

for its famous farmer’s son

the Nobel laureate

who chose to come home

to be buried with his people

In months and years

and generations to come

people not yet born

will seek out this small village

to the east

of Lough Neagh

with the sole purpose

of visiting

Heaney’s grave

Edited September 10, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/the-most-public-of-burials-for-the-most-private-of-men-1.1513937

The most public of burials

for the most private

of men.

Countless hearts

are blown open

as local farmer’s son

is laid to rest.

Rosita Boland

Here is Liam Og O'Flynn,

King of the pipers

as he plays

Seamus Heaney

to eternal rest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxWlinJFc7A

The word Og should have an accent on the O,

and the word OG (with accent)

in Gaelic means YOUNG.

For many years he was known

as Liam Og O'Flynn,

but now that he is getting older

Liam has dropped the Og!

http://www.taramusic.com/biogs/liamobg.htm

Edited September 10, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Liam O'Flynn plays

Mo Ghile Mear My Gallant Darling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE48hJXJJFk

As his friend Seamus is carried

out of church in Dublin

For the long sad journey to Derry,

The town he loved so well.

We remember the beauty

of Seamus Heaney

as a bard,

and in his being.

Paul Muldoon

More Mo Ghile Mear?

Sting and The Chieftains

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auSa0YfkxFE

Edited September 4, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I love this photo of Mary McAleese

wearing her best blue dress for the day

The photo is historic

because Ireland will soon celebrate

the Centenary of Easter 1916

when the british government ordered the assassination

of a truckload of Irish poets

including the first President of Ireland

Patrick Pearse

Like President McAleese her predecessor Pearse was a lawyer

1920 photograph ofWilliam Butler Yeats

First President of Éire

Patrick Henry Pearse

Yeats pays humble tribute

to the executed leaders as he

one by one establishes their place

in history.

Of Pearse

a poet, writer

and the head of St. Edna's

and MacDonagh

denied an opportunity to earn

his own role

as an Irish writer

by his untimely death

Yeats writes

This man had kept a school
and rode our winged horse
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force
He might have won fame in the end
So sensitive his nature seemed
So daring and sweet his thought

https://www.google.com/search?site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1366&bih=632&q=thomas+mcdonagh+poems&oq=thomas+mcdonagh+poems&gs_l=img.12...4804.13662.0.16539.21.14.0.7.7.0.120.929.13j1.14.0....0...1ac.1.26.img..4.17.1017.G6cPiI1z21M#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=HReUTtnAMHFh6M%3A%3ByHpuyllYjWdzjM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fupload.wikimedia.org%252Fwikipedia%252Fcommons%252Fthumb%252F2%252F2e%252FThomas_MacDonagh.png%252F220px-Thomas_MacDonagh.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fen.wikipedia.org%252Fwiki%252FThomas_MacDonagh%3B220%3B324

http://www.gmu.edu/org/ireland32/1916_essay.html

Edited September 10, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

When Louis-Philippe Ruffy,

Who conducted [Heaney's last] interview, Learned of Heaney’s death,

All of a sudden, there was an unsettling connection between Aeneas, who goes to find his father in the underworld, and the poet’s relationship with his own, silent father.

In my mind, I see the poet finding

his father again.

The Irish TImes

Yesterday, Bellaghy was in mourning For its famous farmer’s son:

The Nobel laureate who chose To come home To be buried with his people.

And as the erudite Frenchman

is saying today,

His people include

His father.

Echoes of

Ecce Puer

Of the dark past
A child is born;
With joy and grief
My heart is torn.

Calm in his cradle
The living lies.
May love and mercy
Unclose his eyes!

Young life is breathed
On the glass;
The world that was not
Comes to pass.

A child is sleeping:
An old man gone.
O, father forsaken,
Forgive your son!

James Joyce

[sORRY ABOUT EDITING PROBLEM.

I JUST GAVE UP]

Edited September 4, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[James R Gordon]

Raymond,

A very impressive thread this.

You have, through a variety of means, demonstrated why Seamus Heaney was an impressive poet as well as an impressive human being.

It has been a joy to read your contributions.

Thank you.

James.