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from III - Poetics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2021
This chapter reads the formal evolution of Heaney’s poetry as a partial return to the kind of poet he was in his early career. Devoting most attention to his final two collections, District and Circle and Human Chain, it traces the evolution of his forms out of the narrow stanzas of the bog poems through the 'poetics of airy listening' of his middle career. Discussing the figure of the blacksmith and the prominence of metal objects in Human Chain – as well the emphasis placed by the poet on the pastoral and the etymological – the chapter contends that in returning to the 'weight' of his early style (concentrated, dense), Heaney seeks a style which is universal and permanent. The use of refrains and short lines reminiscent of traditional song are highlighted as being part of this quest to be a 'poet for all times'.
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