HUMAN CHAIN - SEAMIS HEANEY

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                                                                   HUMAN CHAIN                                                                       

                                                                                          SEAMIS HEANEY

 Human Chain  for Terence Brown

Seeing the bags of meal passed hand to hand
In close-up by the aid workers, and soldiers
Firing over the mob, I was braced again

With a grip on two sack corners,
Two packed wads of grain I’d worked to lugs
To give me purchase, ready for the heave –

The eye-to-eye, one-two, one-two upswing
On to the trailer, then the stoop and drag and drain
Of the next lift. Nothing surpassed

That quick unburdening, backbreak’s truest payback,
A letting go which will not come again.
Or it will, once. And for all.

 

About this poem

This poem is included in the anthology Tools of the Trade: Poems for new doctors (Scottish Poetry Library, 2014). The anthology was edited by Dr Lesley Morrison, GP; Dr John Gillies, GP and Chair, Royal College of GPs in Scotland, Rev Ali Newell, and Lilias Fraser. A copy was given to all graduating doctors in Scotland in 2014. We are very grateful for the individual donations which funded the cost of this anthology, and to the Deans of the Scottish medical schools who made it possible to give the books to their graduating students.

 

In a review of Human Chain, Maria Johnston comments on the way in which Heaney's poetry centers on ‘sadness and loss'. With this comment in mind, write a close critical analysis of one poem you have studied from this volume. In the series ‘Album' Heaney creates a sensuous group of word pictures, which almost mimics the way in which a photo album is set out. In these word pictures, we can detect moments of anguish and regret. In many poems in this volume, time and place are very specifically evoked. ‘Album I' begins inside the house but then the poet takes us back into the past to a specific day spent with his parents on the top of ‘Grove Hill'. The mention of ‘Grove Hill', an actual place, makes it more substantive and authentic. The poem is set in the natural world, the world in which he was always most comfortable.…show more content…

    He reminisces about his parents and a particular memory suddenly but exactly evokes the time and place and is vividly recalled. Then Heaney swiftly moves within the poem from one memory to another. Time has dimmed his memory and so Heaney uses axillary verbs, such as ‘it must have been' and ‘could have been Grove Hill', which indicates his uncertainty. He rejoices again in the open-air freedom of the ‘airy Sundays' when he stood on a hill looking out over the view of ‘Magherafelt's four spires in the distance.' The use of this shows a strong visual image of the church and provides a sense of authenticity. As a small child, he stood ‘shin-deep in bluebells'. This image is vivid in its visual and sensual experience.

 

 


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