Seamus Heaneys Poems Essay -- Seamus Heaney Poetry Poets Essays

Seamus Heaneys PoemsHeaney was born on April 13 1939. He was the eldest of nine children.In modern day society it is common to admit 2 or 3 children, and tohave eight or nine children is considered genuinely unusual. Heaney livedon the family farm, Mossbawn, about thirty miles northwest of Belfast,in County Derry. The bulk of UK residents live in urban areas, anda small minority live in rural areas. It used to be more popular inthe past to live in a rural area. People in rural areas live, and havelived, in a totally different culture to that of the people in urban,industrialized areas. Heaney is Irish, which is also another(prenominal) cultureto that of the English, today. The conflict in Northern Ireland isalmost always a backdrop to his work, stated or implicit.Heaneys Poems are based on real spiritedness experiences, which can be think to in only so many ways, because of the differences inlifestyle, culture etc. For example in Blackberry Picking, he istalking of filling berrie s as a boy, and then hoarding them until theyrot. This may imply that he went berry picking just for the fun of it,but today it is unusual for children to go berry picking, let alonewithout an adult. The adult would have known to store the berriesproperly, but in Heaneys day berry picking was a ritual for childrenonly.To my knowledge, the majority of Heaneys poems were written/published between 1960 and 1990, though many of the poems refer to hischildhood in the 1940s. Therefore, even though he is writing from achilds perspective, he has the soul of an adult. He is alsoable to recall events in more detail. Many of the poems I have readare about his parents or major events in his childhood, e.g.Foll... ...e poems are writtenspecifically about his childhood, and the third one links in. Theytell of his loss of innocence, The Early Purges tells us of his lossof sentimentality, loss of idealism as he grows up bloody pups,Blackberry Picking tells us of his loss of optimism and idealism each year I hoped knew they would notThe past is another country and they do things differently thereThis is a very true phrase. Heaneys has a very different past fromus. Therefore, his poems even though some have been written fairlyrecently, can only be related to in context. People living an urbanlife and childhood, would have very different views on life and death,than Heaney does in his poems. The past is certainly another country,they didnt have the technology that we have today. And foreigncountries also have different ways of living than we do.