Sir, – I was a boarder in St Pat’s Armagh in the 1960s. One evening in 1967 it was announced that the senior boarders would be allowed to attend a poetry reading by a young poet named Seamus Heaney.
While I enjoyed English as a subject poetry appreciation was entirely beyond my comprehension. None the less a night out from college meant a trip afterwards to the local cafe for the delights of a bag of chips, a coke and the chance to eye up Armagh‘s finest female talent. As a result we all headed off to the reading hoping it would not last too long and that we would have plenty of time afterwards to enjoy ourselves in the town. We arrived to the hall where the reading was to take place. I think Death of a Naturalist had just recently been published and it was from this collection that Seamus read. I recall vividly the impression his reading made on me – indeed I think on all of us. The soft Derry accent reciting poetry on basic rural topics struck a chord.The poetry thing started to make sense for the first time and I left the reading with a feeling of awe and bewilderment that it resonated with me to such an extent. I have never forgotten that evening but have no recollection of the cafe afterwards!
I met the great man at a function about two years ago , took the opportunity to introduce myself and recalled the event some 45 years previously.He nodded his head and smiled shyly as if to say “Sure what about it”. – Yours, etc,
EUGENE CUSH,
Oak Lane,
Castleconnell,
Co Limerick.
Sir, – Tom Fitzgerald asks, in the light of Seamus Heaney’s work, should scientists not now be adding “spirit” to their space-time continuum? The answer is, they might well be doing so.
Heaney read at a meeting of scientists and poets (not exclusive categories) in Trinity College, last Bastille Day 12 months. Along with scientists of many disciplines in Dublin for a science week, some of whom read their own poetry,a delegation from the French Poetry Society was also present. Fusion is I think the word best fitted to describe what went on; fascinating the result. – Yours, etc,
EOIN DILLON,
Ceannt Fort,
Mount Brown,
Dublin 8.