01-21-2014, 07:44 AM
Exactly, Leanne. For me, Heaney's appeal was beautifully summed up in an article in the NY Times about the poet's work. [The italics are mine.]
"His style, linguistically dazzling, was nonetheless lacking in the obscurity that can attend poetic pyrotechnics.
At its best, Mr. Heaney’s work had both a meditative lyricism and an airy velocity. His lines could embody a dark, marshy melancholy, but as often as not they also communicated the wild onrushing joy of being alive.
The result — work that was finely wrought yet notably straightforward — made Mr. Heaney one of the most widely read poets in the world."
Donna
"His style, linguistically dazzling, was nonetheless lacking in the obscurity that can attend poetic pyrotechnics.
At its best, Mr. Heaney’s work had both a meditative lyricism and an airy velocity. His lines could embody a dark, marshy melancholy, but as often as not they also communicated the wild onrushing joy of being alive.
The result — work that was finely wrought yet notably straightforward — made Mr. Heaney one of the most widely read poets in the world."
Donna
(01-21-2014, 05:18 AM)Leanne Wrote: Heaney's great strength for me was in the breadth and depth of his knowledge. No subject was sacred. Nothing was above ridicule, and nothing was beneath appreciation. He drew upon the past to illuminate the present, like in Beacons at Bealtaine:
Honour the Earth. Without it, we'd be nowhere.