“As my mother held my hand
in hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs”
He writes as if he was an outsider in his own home seeing and hearing everything “Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest.” He uses the word “corpse” to distance himself from his dead brother instead of the word body. It is as if he wants to forget about his brother and act as if nothing has happened. Seamus writes about the white snowdrops in his brother’s room to show us how pure and innocent his brother was. He describes his brother as “paler now” as if he has not seen his for ages. He uses a metaphor “ wearing a poppy bruse on his left temple” He uses the word “poppy” to symbolise remembrance and to show us the colour of it. He writes about his brother looking like he was just asleep not dead because he had no scars
“He lay in the four foot box as in his cot
no gaudy scars,”
It is only at the end of the poem that we find out what has happened to his brother. The last line of the poem adds lots of effect and makes you feel really sorry for him “A four foot box, a foot for every year.”
The second poem that I am going to write about is ‘The Early Purges’. This poem is about the literal death, decay and loss of farmyard pests and the loss of Heaney’s own opinions and sentimentality. This poem is about a farm worker called Dan Taggart who is killing the pests of Heaney’s father’s farm. Heaney is only six years old and is watching Dan killing the pests. Heaney doesn’t want Dan to kill them. ‘The Early Purges’ means the early getting rid of. Heaney uses this as the title because he was only six years old when first saw Dan getting rid of the kittens. He uses words to show that Dan does not care for the kittens like “pitched” instead of put and “slung” instead of placed. Dan says they’re “the scraggy wee shits”. Once in the bucket Heaney uses words like “frail” and “soft paws scraping like mad” to make us sympathise with the kittens. Heaney incorporates an oxymoron into the poem “tiny din” which means that they are making the biggest noise that they possible can but it is still quite quiet to us. They drown in the bucket and Heaney did not want them to die and does not like it. Dan sees the look of disgust on Heaney’s face and says “Sure, isn’t, it better for them now?” Heaney disagrees with this because he does not answer. Heaney uses a slimily to describe them “Like wet gloves they bobbed and shone” Heaney does not want to see the dead kittens but he keeps on seeing them and it makes him sad. No one cares for them.
“Round the yard, watching the three sogged remains
Turn mealy and crisp as old summer dung.”
He does eventually forget about the kittens but he thinks of them again when Dan kills other pests. Heaney says that “living displaces false sentiments” which means as you grow older the less you feel for things. As Heaney has grown up he is trying to act like Dab by saying “Bloody pups” when puppies have to be killed. I think Heaney still feels for the animals but puts on a show to not seem weak in front of Dan. In the town they try to prevent animals from being killed but on a farm death is necessary and a natural thing Heaney says, that animals sometimes do have to be killed.
The third poem that I am going to write about is ‘Blackberry Picking’ which is about the literal loss of the blackberries. This poem is an extended metaphor so although the poem is about blackberries it could be about something else, perhaps life. At the beginning of the poem it talks about time as if he knows exactly when the blackberries are going to come “Late August , given heavy rain and sun.” It is as if he has done this all his life even though he is only a child. He can describe the exactly “ a glossy purple clot.” He talks about eating them, he says “summer’s blood was in it.” It sounds as if summer has put its own life into the berries, the berries needed to be picked. The wanted the berries so much that they used any thing they could find to collect them in “with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots” they want them so badly that they do not care about getting scratched or the wet grass or getting their boots ruined. Also they would go anywhere to get them “Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills”. Heaney compares himself to Bluebeard (the pirate) because like Bluebeard, Heaney would do anything to get his hands on the berries, like Bluebeard would do anything to get his hands on the treasure. They filled the shed with them, they went to fill the bath, when they filled the bath mold had began to grow on the berries. Heaney describes it as “a rat-grey fungus” he used this because people see rats as horrible creatures. Heaney says “ I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair.” He talks as if he was a child, children say that things aren’t fair all the time. Every year Heaney hopes that the berries will keep, but he know that they will not. Reality sneaks in and ruins it. It is like in your life you always hope that everything will go well but it does not always.
Heaney’s poems are either about the death, decay or loss of literal things or untangible things. In ‘Mid-Term Break’ it is about the literal loss of his brother. In ‘The Early Purges’ it is about the literal loss of farmyard pests and the loss of his own opinions and sentiments. The poem ‘Blackberry Picking’ is about the loss of his blackberries but the poem is an extended metaphor so it could be about something else, possibly the death of a person.