The Impression Left by “Mid-term Break”, “Blackberry Picking” and “The Early Purges” by Seamus Heaney

In Midterm Break, Heaney reflects on the memory of his younger brother’s death, and returning home for his funeral. The poem as a whole has an overall

Discuss how your investigation of the generic conventions of poetry has influenced your understanding of at least one poem that you have studied in this unit.

Childhood is portrayed as a time of safety that is often looked back upon with nostalgia from an adult perspective. Monosyllabic words are used to show the simplicity of childhood life, for example in the line “the thing I could not grasp or name”. The ‘spring violets’ are ‘in their loamy bed’ and are no longer frail and melancholy, and the memory takes place on a ‘hot afternoon’ in contrast to the ‘cold dusk’ that represents the present. Childhood is represented as a joyful, vivacious time in one’s life, and the value of a stable family life is conveyed. The unexpected integration of Australian vernacular in the line ‘it will soon be night, you goose’, adds a sense of freedom and relaxation to the otherwise formal discourse and more rigid structure of the poem, once again reflects the simplicity and innocence that is associated with childhood. The use of

Whether you realise it or not, the act of representation is a constant and significant aspect of our lives. It defines and influences our perceptions of things in either a positive or negative way. One poem that I particularly admire from Harwood’s collection is ‘The violets’ , as it recognises the inevitable act of evolving without our childhood memories. The art of growing up and moving forward is only fully accomplished when we recognise and accept the experiences and explorations of our childhood. Harwood’s poetic style reflects her conservative, traditional and religious upbringing, as well as her interests in literature, philosophy and music. As one of Australia’s finest poets, and it is an honour to introduce Harwood’s latest poem anthology.

Harwood explore ideas concerning childhood innocence and experience through her poems, reflecting her deep interest in philosophy and the human experience. As a young contemporary reader, Harwood’s emphasis on the importance of childhood memories is particularly resonant, evoking the audience to reflect upon their own naïve recollections. This is also supported by the critic Hoddinott who stated that within Harwood’s body of work, “dreams of childhood have a particular power…perception of the truth with fear of the unknown” is also evident in “The Violets” where the importance of memories is explored as a reflection on an individual’s growth from naivety to experience. Harwood uses the rhetoric “Where’s morning gone?” in recognition of the carelessness exhibited in childhood

In my thoughts, Harwood’s poetry engages readers through its poetic treatment of loss and consolation throughout relationships as well as its exploration of universal themes about human existence and processes of life. Harwood’s poetry validates the consoling influence of childhood experiences upon adult development evident in both At Mornington and A Valediction where they both explore one sense of loss and consolidation. Harwood cleverly includes personas with their own feelings and anxieties to outlook on the present and future and the power of memories held with past relationships. Relationships link within Harwood’s poetry as throughout life she experiences suffering and includes her personal voice and life within the story of her poem.

fair”, you can tell this is the voice of a child. There is also a

All three of these works show the authors’ speakers’ experiences leading to their childhood innocence being stripped from them or otherwise crushed beneath the weight of reality. Cullen plays with the lightness of childhood innocence in the first quatrain. This is highlighted in line two “...heart-filled, head-filled with glee,” (Fader/Rabinowitz pg.

The title of Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” also misguides the reader in a similar fashion. The phrase ‘mid-term break’ prompts the reader to imagine time spent with family, away from the pressure of academic stress

Though the poem focuses heavily on the speaker’s attempts to satisfy his desire, no greater purpose appears to lie at the end of his quest. The “plate of eyes” that “burned” suggests that the speaker feels like he’s being watched, as if someone is standing and judging him for his thirst. The word “burned” implies that the feeling of being observed left a painful impression on him. The pickers leave the field with “hands peppered with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s” (16). The choice of a comparison to Bluebeard, the violent murderer from a fairytale, suggests that the speakers links his desire with a violent, destructive act, further illustrating the way lust and desire is tangled up with guilt. Those who desire as the pickers do are haunted and tormented by the fruitlessness of their efforts. Furthermore, the poem is structured such that, for the most part, the ends of the lines do not quite rhyme. The “almost rhymes” throughout the poem mirror the disappoint the speakers feels; lines that come close to rhyming are just short of satisfying to read, similar to how the pickers’ quest does not quite fulfill their desire. By interweaving pain and disappointment with the blackberry picking process, the author suggests that with excess greed and desire comes pain and suffering. The pickers know, at least subconsciously, that their trek through the fields has neither an end goal nor a

William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper” in his Songs of Innocence is a literary masterpiece that is still relevant and impactful in the modern world. In lovely form and description, Blake explains the atrocities and hardships of the Industrial Age in a poem suitable for school-age children and with the beautiful simplicity that only a writer like Blake could produce. The Songs of Innocence is a look into the purity and wonderful outlook on life that children usually have. While in its counterpart, the Songs of Experience, Blake uses adults as protagonist. The Songs of Experience is a look at the effects that hardships and failures have on adults, therefore having a pessimistic outlook toward life. In his these two works, Blake produces a parallel universe between childhood and adulthood where the optimism of dreams of childhood and the bitterness and stagnation of adulthood never seem to know one another.

A child’s future is usually determined by how their parent’s raise them. Their characteristics reflect how life at home was like, if it had an impeccable effect or destroyed the child’s entire outlook on life. Usually, authors of any type of literature use their experiences in life to help inspire their writing and develop emotion to their works. Poetry is a type of literary work in which there is an intensity given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinct styles and rhythm. These distinct styles include different types of poems such as sonnets, villanelles, free verse, imagist poems, and many more. And these distinct styles are accentuated with the use of literary devices such as metaphors, similes, imagery, personification, rhyme, meter, and more. As a whole, a poem depicts emotions the author and reader’s can relate to. In the poem’s “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, and “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, we read about two different parent and child relationships. These two poems help portray the flaws and strength’s parents exhibit and how their children follow their actions and use it as a take away in their grown up lives.

As the speaker casually calls their parents, a setting of calm expectations is established. While greeting the speaker, the mother’s decision to “run out and get” (1) the father highlights the lack of urgency that is present. The mother is calm and fetches the father in an expected and relaxed fashion, further establishing the calm expectations of the ongoing call. The mother additionally states that “the weather here’s so good” (2). Heaney’s use of the word “good” reflects the setting of the mother and father’s home; the atmosphere of where they live is pleasant and unperturbed. The “weather” serves as a projection of the father’s own state, implying that the father is in good health and that death is not yet looming over him. The last spoken words in the poem reveal that the father was conducting “a bit of weeding” (3). The word “weeding” highlights the capability of the

The children are the ‘we’ of the first half of the poem. They “loved it” (5) when the mother kicked out their father and were “glad” (1) at the result of divorce. When their father lost his job they “grinned” (4) and were “tickled” (line 7) with pleasure as they watched their father’s world crash down around him. The sympathy conveyed through the narrative sits with the mother and children during the first half of the poem. As the daughter begins to speak in present terms, and the “you” (1,3) suddenly is now “father” (17), the poem undertakes a dramatic shift. Sympathy begins to surface, from the reader, for the “bums in doorways” (18) who begin to take on a victimized persona with their hands depicted as useless “flippers” (21) attached to their “slug” (19) bodies. It is not to say that the speaker has forgotten the cruel insensitive man that she recalls in the first part of the poem, but the father is now not the only villain and the mother and children are not the only sufferers.

Blackberry picking by Seamus Heaney is about time, gluttony, limitations of life, and to some extent, the struggles of life. Heaney writes retrospectively about his life, with hindsight, about how he as a child, would go blackberry picking during a particular time of year.