Far too clever for me to get much from it. The writing is beautiful, but so complex I was spending so long working it out that the poems didn't really get a chance. ( )

And the poet draws from his word-hoard a weird tale
Of a life and a love balked, which I reword here
Remembering earth-tremors once on Dartmoor,
The power station wailing in its pit
Under the heath, as if our night walk led
Not to the promised tor but underground
To sullen halls where encumbered sleepers groaned. ( )

[a: Seamus Heaney|29574|Seamus Heaney|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1200407647p2/29574.jpg] has no equal.

Here, an excerpt from his poem "Audenesque":

Worshipped language can't undo
Damage time has done to you:
Even your peremptory trust
In words alone here bites the dust.

Dust-cakes still -- see Gilgamesh --
Feed the dead. So be their guest.
Do again what Auden said
Good poets do: bite, break their bread.


He is a dense poet, one I don't even pretend I can truly grasp the whole of. Still, I read, and will doubtless read again, and again, and again. There's so much to delve into, so much to see and to feel.

Truly, the world is a blessed place to have had, and to still have, his poetry available in it. ( )

It might have been a five-star if I had gotten all of the allusions and what not. I'm not a big reader of poetry, but you can't go wrong with Heaney. ( )

Oh, Seamus. What can I say? He chronicles "the must and drift of talk". ( )