In “Mid-Term Break” Heaney describes the grief for his brother’s death. By the title “Mid-term Break” this suggests a holiday but this “break” is not because of positive reasons. The boredom of waiting appears as he is counting of bells, but because he is “knelling” this suggests that rather than lesson bells, it is funeral bells. In his other poems, he explains that his father was a very strong and powerful man, when “I met my father crying” creates shock for the reader and shows how distraught his father was. Heaney uses hyphens to emphasise what he has just said and this also gives the reader time to let the concept develop as “he had always taken funerals in his stride-“. The words he uses like “corpse” and “whisper” contrast. This gives a dramatic effect. He doesn’t mention his brother until the fifth stanza where he just names him as “the corpse”. Even then he doesn’t directly address his brother, this gives a sense of denial and the impression that Heaney is wants to emphasise the effects of grief before the person who died. In the last stanza Heaney describes his brother “wearing a poppy bruise” on his temple. The poppy is red which connotes remembrance, which is connected to death. Furthermore, he said that he is “wearing” the bruise and is not part of the body as it could be taken off, this is repetition from the earlier emotion of denial. In the final line, “A four foot box, a foot for every year”, Heaney uses alliteration to engage the reader’s thought. The lexis that he uses is monosyllabic except “every”, which is the word that is stressed. This line also emphasises how young his brother was and creates the readers’ sympathy.
In “Follower” Heaney describes his memories of his father working and a younger version of himself trying to copy his father. The title of this poem is ambiguous, it shows how the young Heaney followed his father literally and metaphorically. He uses maritime words to describe his father such as “rolled”, “wake” and “breaking” like waves. This creates the view of his father being powerful and uncontrollable. Heaney uses metaphors linking his father to the world by saying “his shoulders globed”. He also creates a metaphor by describing his father as a horse, which adds to the powerful view, Heaney also suggests that his father treats the horses as if he is the leader of the pack, he does this by describing the horses as the “team”. Furthermore he uses a lot of onomatopoeic words like “clicking” and “yapping”. Heaney writes as if his father is not just a farmer but an artist because he is “an expert” at his job. At the end of the poem, he explains now “it is my father that is stumbling behind me”, suggesting that their roles have been reverses and his father has become his moral conscience and holds him back by his views always being present in his mind whenever making decisions. I think that Heaney is describing his guilt for not carrying on the tradition of farming.
In “Personal Helicon” Heaney reflects and explains his childhood adventures exploring wells and his personal inspiration. He uses words like “rich” and “fructified” which make it seem as if he is describing a luscious rainforest instead of a well. He also uses synaesthesia like “I savoured the rich crash” and “clean new music”. To create fluidity in this poem, he has uses alliteration with “dry stone ditch”. This creates a clear view of Heaney’s experiences but universally, the poem is about childhood joy being beneath all adult dignity. Furthermore, I think Heaney is using this poem to remember nostalgic memories without looking back at The Troubles during his childhood because the lexis he uses in the last stanza include words like “darkness” and “echoing”.
In conclusion, I think that Heaney uses a lot of sensory imagery and other literary tools to portray his childhood experiences to the reader such as synaesthesia, onomatopoeia and alliteration. He uses his experiences to discuss universal topics so he can relate to different types of readers. The way he does this makes his poems extremely successful.
