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Loading... Electric Light (2001)by Seamus Heaney
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. 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. no reviews | add a review
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The powerful collection by the bestselling translator of "Beowulf" "In the finland of perch, the fenland of alder, on air""That is water, on carpets of Bann stream, on hold""In the everything flows and steady go of the world."--from "Perch" Seamus Heaney's collection travels widely in time and space, visiting the sites of the classical world and revisiting the poet's childhood: rural electrification and the light of ancient evenings are reconciled within the orbit of a single lifetime. This is a book about origins (not least, the origins of words) and oracles: the places where things start from, the ground of understanding -- whether in Arcadia or Anahorish, the sanctuary at Epidaurus or the Bann valley in County Derry. "Electric Light" ranges from short takes to conversation poems. The pre-Socratic wisdom that everything flows is held in tension with the elegizing of friends and fellow poets. These gifts of recollection renew the poet's calling to assign things their proper names; once again Heaney can be heard exting his word hoard and roll call in this, his eleventh collection. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)821.914Literature English English poetry 1900- 1900-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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