Hope and History

26th Avenue Poet recites Seamus Heaney

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This is for

Tara Penry

and her students, for their “Poems to Carry in the Blood” project. Recite a poem, was Tara’s ask to her Substack friends; one you’ve remembered for a long time, often call to mind, have memorized or nearly so — a poem that’s become part of you. Show my students that that can happen.

So here’s an excerpt from “The Cure at Troy” , a long dramatic poem written by Seamus Heaney in 1990. A friend gave me a copy of it twenty-plus years ago, and it’s been on my bulletin board ever since. I’ve re-read it often enough (usually aloud) that I can recite it from memory with, um, 94% accuracy; keeping the words in front of me today (that twenty-plus-year-old copy!), to be sure I give you all the right ones.

💛🌿26th Avenue Poet (Elizabeth)