10 Comments

That's so lovely. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Expand full comment

💛🌿

Expand full comment

This is exactly the poem (section of a poem) I needed to hear today. Thank you, Elizabeth, for sharing it. :)

Expand full comment

Glad to deliver Seamus's words to you on the day you need them, Petra. 💛🌿

Expand full comment

I love your slow and stately reading, Elizabeth, which suits the strong emotions of this excerpt: longing, revenge, belief, and longing again. It's Heaney's gift to look struggle so directly in the eye and still "Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells." What a relief! Thank you.

Expand full comment

Thanks for the invitation to record this. "Slow and stately" was ... not what I was going for, but I can hear how it came out that way, I guess! And yes, it's a poem that wants weight (and light) on every word.

Thank you for what you're doing to plant poetry in your students' hearts.

Expand full comment

"History says, Don't hope on this side of the grave." Here and elsewhere, in your recording, I notice how you give the heavy monosyllables their due. Perhaps "stately" is not the word for an *Irish* poem, if it evokes monarchical pageantry. Slow and grave where gravity is called for, and also rising into light when hope enters. The metaphor should be more organic, shouldn't it? Is that closer?

Expand full comment

It’s more than generous. 💛🌿

Expand full comment

Another Irish voice heard from. That is some FIERCE trad -- thank you for bringing it here.

Expand full comment