Seamus Heaney poems

One of the features I appreciated about Literary Cavalcade were the commentaries that often accompanied the poems that were published there. They helped my students to understand the poems more fully and often provided a point of discussion. The commentaries proved so useful that I began writing my own. This post includes the commentaries for several poems by Seamus Heaney. Where possible I have included a link to the poem.



"Honeymoon Flight" link

The poem opens with Heaney and his new bride in an airplane flying off on their honeymoon. The first stanza describes what they see as they look from the window of the plane. He compares the way the roads bind villages and farms together to a 'loose marriage'. He also points out the 'lough and farmhouse'. There are many loughs (lakes) in Ireland and most of the country is rural. As the plane banks, the world appears tilted or turned upside-down, and then Ireland is left behind. Heaney marvels at the miracle of flight. The power of the jet engines and the pressure of the air allows this enormous plane to stay aloft. As the noise of the engines changes, Heaney's bride looks at him, probably a bit fearful. Then the captain's voice comes over the intercom, they experience some turbulence, and Heaney is reminded things are now beyond their control. They must place their trust in someone else. Heaney wants us to see that the marriage they are beginning is much like the trip they have just embarked upon. Everything looks different from this new vantage point. The old life is left behind, and the newly married couple, like the travellers 'can only trust.' Notice the form the poem takes. Each of the stanzas uses an A-B-A-B rhyme scheme, but because all of the rhymes are slant rhymes, the reader is hardly aware of them. The rhyme adds to the overall effect of the poem without overpowering it.

"Mother of the Groom" link

The poem opens with the mother of the groom remembering her son as an infant, and later a child. She remarks first about his back, which is probably what she sees now from her vantage point in the church, and then on his boots, which she likely sees as he kneels at the altar during the wedding ceremony. The second stanza lets us see her in the present moment. She is sitting with her hands in her lap, which is now empty. She is welcoming his new wife to the family, but she feels as if she has lost her grip on her son. Note the simile Heaney uses in the last two lines of stanza two: ' It's as if he kicked when lifted/And slipped her soapy hold.' The thought of soap and how slippery it is reminds her that at one time soapy hands allowed her to slip off her wedding ring that can no longer be removed. What once was temporal has now become permanent, just as it will for her son.