“The Skunk” by Seamus Heaney
“The Skunk” by Seamus Heaney is a poem that is set in the California darkness and the protagonist is temporarily exiled from his wife, and as he write love letters to her a skunk passes by and he is reminded of the qualities of his wife. This poem raises the themes of separation and love. These themes are emphasized through the use of literature techniques such as zoomorphism, sensory imagery and the use of sounds. Heaney also uses blasphemous and absurd associations that many would fine startling.
The poem begins with the protagonist sitting beside his desk as “the light softened beyond the veranda” in the California darkness. As he is temporarily exiled from his wife, he begins to writes a love letter to her. As he is writing the letters a skunk passes by and the poet see qualities within the skunk that remind him of his wife. This use of symbolism and zoomorphism within the poem is done to describe the sexual and the instinctual attraction. This use of zoomorphism can be considered as being risky because many might think of a skunk as being repulsive and nauseating creature and anything but erotic, yet the protagonist still relates the qualities of the skunk to his wife. The use of symbolism might have been used to how the readers that even he best of qualities can be found in the worst of things. This also just shows the power of imagination and how we can compare something so absurd to something so beautiful and wonderful.