tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post3274435973963478940..comments2024-03-29T12:03:37.344+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: What to think of Seamus Heaney?Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-9118305386025056612013-09-02T16:56:55.755+01:002013-09-02T16:56:55.755+01:00No idea about this chap's judgement, but this ...No idea about this chap's judgement, but this article is pretty much in accordance with my own opinions (including about Larkin)<br /><br />http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100233782/seamus-heaney-the-nelson-mandela-of-irish-poetry-just-wasnt-that-good-sorry/<br />Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-38905461046044198482013-09-01T08:15:07.444+01:002013-09-01T08:15:07.444+01:00I am not trying to persuade anybody else about SH ...I am not trying to persuade anybody else about SH - merely noting that I read poetry in hope of finding a particular quality that poetry (and only poetry) sometimes provides - and this is not found in SH, indeed it is clear that he is avoiding it. <br /><br />Poetry can only be defined in such a minimal fashion that the definition is over inclusive (and exploitable) - but poetry is certainly minimally about *rhythmic* speech, speech underpinned by regular patterns of stresses. <br /><br />Heaney deliberately avoids this (iambic-pentameter-phobia) and is instead doing something with consonants and vowels and what not. In the process, the special quality of poetry is subtracted. <br /><br />Incidentally, I could not detect this special quality of poetry until I was about 21, and had been reading poetry for about 8 years; until then I felt at sea reading poems, since then I have a sense of 'getting it' (when it is there to 'get')Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-66641781509261183302013-09-01T05:32:36.666+01:002013-09-01T05:32:36.666+01:00What is a poem--I know it when I read it.
So let&...What is a poem--I know it when I read it.<br /><br />So let's see if I can write one in real time as I type. <br /><br />Words, words, words, as gossamer thin veils,<br />Are winsome spirits fluttering on ethereal sails.<br /><br />The ship upon sea at night,<br />Alone and solitary sight:<br />Has no surety but thee,<br />oh silent dark and lonesome sea.<br /><br />Leviathan from deep beneath,<br />a whirlpool or a hidden reef:<br />Disaster always right at hand,<br />No sight or sound or smell of land.<br /><br />But steady 'n sure the captain's weathered face,<br />T'will steel the crew and guide to harbour safe.<br /><br />Through thunder, sleet and hail,<br />No faithless unto the Fates do wail.<br />Nor is any Andromeda to Poseidon an offering made,<br />or Lot's daughters to a lustful crowd betrayed.<br /><br />But faithful ever to the day soon to arise,<br />Relinquish fearful phantom's horrific lies.<br /><br />Imagination's tempest thinning in the sunlight yields,<br />to a promised land of plush and fertile fields.<br /><br /><br />Probably not a grade "A" effort, but as much as I can muster at midnight after a long day. Is it a poem? It has the form of one, so from a technical perspective it is. Is it a good poem? That is a different question. I have written a lot better. But it is a poem, just not a great one.Nicholas Fulfordnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-8309640363107041422013-09-01T01:46:32.996+01:002013-09-01T01:46:32.996+01:00Every one of us is a bad poet. Every one. Every one of us is a bad poet. Every one. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-69615154422186163512013-09-01T01:29:26.248+01:002013-09-01T01:29:26.248+01:00http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/10276092/Seamus-Heaney-his-10-best-poems.html<br /><br />Based on that I am inclined to agree. There is nothing expressed, they are mere discordant phrases. Not surprising that such work could win the Nobel prize after modernism and post-modernism though.Luqmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-65234076094186338982013-08-31T21:26:24.416+01:002013-08-31T21:26:24.416+01:00@Bill - it's not the kind of thing that can be...@Bill - it's not the kind of thing that can be defined. It is more a matter of recognizing - like recognizing lyrical musical phrasing, or the fluidity of line in a drawing. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-60071439090959803142013-08-31T21:05:21.964+01:002013-08-31T21:05:21.964+01:00I happened to be reading some of his stuff a few w...I happened to be reading some of his stuff a few weeks ago. At one point he talks about holding a pen like a gun. But the way you hold the two objects is entirely different. It was a very poor image: what can he have been thinking of?deariemenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-53864210001031007882013-08-31T20:49:40.604+01:002013-08-31T20:49:40.604+01:00How would you define "poet"?How would you define "poet"?Billnoreply@blogger.com