Seamus Heaney died on Friday last. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.
Seamus Heaney was a great Irish man, a great poet and most important, a great human being.
Indeed that everyone in Ireland and England would agree with this opinion of Seamus Heaney would be a measure of how great an Irishman, poet and human being he was.
Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny´s discription of Seamus Heaney resonates with me. The Taoiseach said: ´´Seamus Heaney was the keeper of language, our codes, our essence as a people.´´
It is a sad day in Ireland at this far too early loss of an Irish man who made words twinkle and dance. He made us proud that we could claim the same place of origin as he.
Not just in Ireland but all over the world those who love words mourn his death. Here in Germany a student of English wrote to me of Seamus Heaney. She said:
....as a human being he always seemed so full of grace, kindness and generosity, and so much modesty in all his famousness. .... there is something in his poetry which to me seemed to be able to say things you normally cannot put into words.
She is right.
Seamus Heaney´s poem Song is a favorite of the student´s from his vast legacy of wordmanship.
Song
A rowan like a lipsticked girl.
Between the by-road and the main road
Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance
Stand off among the rushes.
There are the mud-flowers of dialect
And the immortelles of perfect pitch
And that moment when the bird sings very close
To the music of what happens.
Not only a gifted poet, Seamus Heaney challenged us for ignoring the powerless, the forgotten.
In The Irish Times this week, Colm O’Gorman said Heaney’s poem From the Republic of
Conscience, which he wrote for Amnesty International, had inspired a
generation of human rights activists. He was “a true
ambassador of conscience, a man whose empathy for the powerless and the
marginalised was matched by his magnificent capacity to construct
language which demanded a deep reflection on what it means to be human”.
I enclose links showing a little of Seamus Heaney, how people thought of him and a taste of his craft in action.
Seamus Heaney himself reading a poem:
Seamus Heaney´s won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. This is a link with the text of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech; there is also an audio link with him reading it.
http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1506
I like this interview with Seamus Heaney below from the Paris Review in Sept. 2010. I feel I can ´hear` him speaking.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1217/the-art-of-poetry-no-75-seamus-heaney
The Irish Times report on his death.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/tributes-paid-to-keeper-of-language-seamus-heaney-1.1510607?page=2
This is a fitting obituary from the English BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13930435
.... the list goes on.
The Belfast Telegraph, a newspaper not world famous for speaking enthusiastically of people with affiliations south of the boarder, said this weekend of Seamus Heaney: ´´He showed that you did not need to deny the rights of others to stay true to own roots.´´
So I end with witty words from the man himself, which might give credence to the Telegraph´s comments; it seems Seamus Heaney was not at all happy that his work was included in The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry. Heaney wrote in "An Open Letter" in 1983:
Be advised my passport's green.
No glass of ours was ever raised
to toast the Queen.
Thank you Mr. Heaney for the legacy you left us with your words. And with your actions.
My deepest sympathy to his wife and Ann and their three children, Michael, Christopher, and Catherine. Nochmal: Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam - May he rest in Peace
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