The first poem was written by R.S Thomas and is named Children’s Song. This is a superb piece of writing done in block verse which suits this poem perfectly because it is as if is squeezed into a small area like a child’s world which adults are too big to get into. The subject is presented from the child’s eyes and in the first five lines the language is quite childish and easy to understand. All of sudden the poet changes this by using two or three words to help you get into an adult frame of mind although the child is still the person speaking. Thomas thinks that children interpret the way adults look down on them with an amused look and as I see my sisters child quite a lot, I notice that we do try our best to get down to the child’s level and also involve ourselves constantly in their play, thinking that we inhabit the same world. The poem is a light and humorous poem, which shows imaginatively the world of children as utterly separate from that of parents and adults, though grown-ups pretend to understand and even go as far as to patronize the child. The poem shows a general happy remoteness from the adult world. How do we know when a child grows out of that little world? When they learn to speak, or when they start school? All we know is that this child’s world
“Is too small for you to stoop and enter”.
Thomas compares the child’s world to
“Eggs in the cupped nest” or the “closed flower.”
The image or compassion is very appropriate because when the bud is opened the flower blossoms in all its beauty and colour just as the child will grow out of the little world where it is protected and enclosed, to become an adult in al his or her strength and power.
The second poem is one of a sequence which Heaney wrote a short time after the death of his mother M.K. Heaney. It is dedicated to his mother, and the poem is written in the. The first eight lines recall Heaney’s memories of him and his mother spending time together without anyone else around. Heaney is the oldest of nine in his family and his father had taken “all the others” away to Mass the poet and his mother are left to prepare the Sunday dinner. The child and his mother are peeling potatoes with out saying anything; it’s as if they are telling each other every secret they have, in the silence, which probably spoke louder than words. It was as if they were in a different world and the only thing that brought them back to reality was the
“Little pleasant splashes”.
Which the potatoes make as they fell into the clean water of the This was probably one of the only times he and his mother got to spend together without the other children and to Heaney this must have been one of the most special memories he had of his mother.
This is the reason I think he remembered it when everyone else was in tears and praying at her deathbed. The sestet of the sonnet takes place at the time when he, recalled the memory that inspired the poem. Now he is sitting at his mother’s deathbed and he and his mother seems to be breathing in time with each other once again. Are both thinking of that one memory? It didn’t matter to them that there were priests and others praying and crying. They were together again, as in days gone by and that’s all that mattered to them.
The third and final poem is another poem by Heaney but this one named Blackberry Picking was done at a different stage of his life. It was written in similar type style as the sonnet but it shows the different ways in which nature works and we visualise Heaney in his childhood doing what most country children would have done at one time or another. The poem is set in late August when the blackberries have started ripening and he and his friends would use everything they have to collect the berries. Once finished they store the berries in a bath but they mildew and a dark grey fur which was described as `rat-grey` completely covers them. The imagery in the poem is brilliant as it describes a life like picture of the stains on their tongues, and we can imagine the children setting off all with their different types of cans and pots, and their boots bleached by them from the wet grass. The language of the poem is quite easy to understand, as Heaney doesn’t require you to dig to find out what he means. He says exactly what he wants you to read and it’s like a full movie in your mind, which is what separates Heaney from some other similar poets.
When asked which poem I think is my favourite I have to declare that the decision is a close call. All three poems have special qualities but the poem, which seemed to touch me most had to be Clearances number Three as I can tell how hard this time most have been for the poet and the whole way through the poem, his feelings and his thoughts are conveyed have fully to me. It must have been difficult to write about probably one of the hardest days of his life, The poem has been so well set out and structure of and the sonnet form suits the convert perfectly. The poem makes me think how lucky I am to have only ever had to console my best friend as his granddad had died, when I lose someone close to me, I could look back on this and may be then understand how hard it was for the poet to accept the loss of someone as precious as his mother obviously was to him.
In conclusion, I chose the poems I did was because the R.S Thomas poem showed childhood in a light style that I think was very humorous. The reason I picked two poems by Seamus Heaney was that I wanted to show the difficult times and memories he has of childhood. As His early life may have been quite hard because he was born in the year that world war two broke out and his first twelve years were spent in the shadow of that war and the hardship which the conflict, the shortages and the rationing of goods that shortages caused brought to everyday life. Living in the country clearly gave the young child Heaney enjoyment hit there was also heartbreaking disappointment, as we see from the lose of the blackberries year after year I admire Heaney for all the things he has achieved in his life even after such hard times.
By Paul Mallon 11A1