Poet Seamus Heaney and Joseph Brodsky, from an article I found about their relationship https://www.thearticle.com/seamus-heaney-and-joseph-brodsky-a-poetic-friendship
I am going to choose randomly from my poetry collection another book of poems to read, at least a couple of poems, maybe one or two, we'll see how long they are. I'm just gonna grab this one. Seamus Heaney, famous Irish poet and scholar of poetry, and this is his Selected Poems, 1988-2013.
I have two poems here that I've opened up to, one is called “Vitruviana” and the other is “Audenesque”. Sounds very intellectual, maybe “Audenesque” is about the poet W. H. Auden, but we shall see. And then “Vitruviana” for Phileme Egan, don't know who that is, maybe we'll find out.
Let's read “Vitruviana” first. Get my poetry reading voice ready.
[note the following poems are not formatted as in the book, they are formatted as I spoke them or as the transcriber interpreted me speaking them, in prose style:]
In the deep pool at Port Stewart, I waded in, up to the chest, then stood there half suspended, like Vitruvian man, both legs wide apart, both arms out buoyant to the fingertips, oxter-cogged on the water. My head was light, my backbone plump (oh, not plump, plumb) my backbone plumb, my boy nipples bisected and tickled by the steel-zip-cold meniscus. On the hard scrabble of the junior football pitch, where Leo Day, the college drillie, bounced and counted and kept us all in line. In front of the wooden horse, one, two, in, out, we upped and downed and scissored arms and legs and spread ourselves in the wind's cross, felt our palms as tautly strung as Francis of Assisi's in Giotto's mural, where angelic neon zaps the ping-palmed saint with the stigmata. On Sandy Mount Strand, I can connect some bits and pieces, my seaside whirly-gig, the cardinal points, the gray matter of sand and sky, and a light that is down to earth, beginning to fan out and open up.
Wow, that's quite a poem. Gonna take a little while to unpack that one.
“Audenesque”
in memory of Joseph Brodsky
Joseph, yes, you know the beat. Whyston Auden's metric feet marched to it unstressed and stressed, laying William Yeats to rest. (Is it Yeats or Yates? Yates.) Therefore, Joseph, on this day, Yeats's anniversary, double-crossed and death-marched date, January 28. It's measured ways I tread again, quatrain by constrained quatrain, meeting grief and reason out, as you said a poem ought. Trochee, trochee, falling, thus, grief and meter order us, repetition is the rule, spin on lines we learnt at school, repetition too of cold in the poet and the world, Dublin airport locked in frost, rigor mortis in your breast, ice no axe or book will break, no Horatian code unlock, no poetic foot imprint, quatrain shift or couplet dent. (Oh, it keeps going. It's got another two pages.) Ice of archangelic strength, ice of this hard two-faced month, ice like Dante's in deep hell, makes your heart a frozen well. Pepper vodka you produced once in western Massachusetts, with the reading due to start, warmed my spirits and my heart, but no vodka cold or hot, aquavit or whiskabog, brings the blood back to your cheeks or the color of your jokes, politically incorrect, jokes involving sex and sect, everything against the grain, drinking, smoking, like a train. In a train in Finland we talked last summer happily, swapping manuscripts and quips, both of us like cracking whips, sharpened up and making free, heading west for Tampere, west that meant for you, of course, Lenin's train trip in reverse. Nevermore that wild speed read, nevermore your tilted head, like a deck where mind took off with a mind flash and a laugh, nevermore that rush to pun or to hurry through all yon, jammed enjambments piling up as you went above the top, nose in air, foot to the floor, revving English like a car, you hijacked when you robbed its bank, Russian was your reserve tank. Worshipped language can't undo, damaged time has done to you, even your peremptory trust in words alone here bites the dust, dust cakes still see Gilgamesh, feed the dead, so be their guest, do again what Auden said, good poets do, bite, break their bread.
Whoo, that is quite a poem. They're both powerful verses, words that I might have to look up, allusions to people in places that I may know very little about.
Vitruviana obviously alludes to Vitruvian man (nothing like coffee to take the frog out of your throat.) So who is Vitruvian man? I believe that was that great drawing by da Vinci showing the man in various poses with his arms, a naked man with his arms and legs spread in various directions. Vitruvian man? In the deep pool at Port Stewart, I waded in. So it's a little vignette, probably biographical. I can't imagine that he's just imagining this. I think this is an experience that the poet is having and feeling, and he wants to get it on paper. Waded in up to the chest and stood there half suspended like Vitruvian man. So kind of when you're wading, when you're buoyed by water and your arms and legs can kind of move around. So he likens that to Vitruvian man.Both legs wide apart, both arms out buoyant to the fingertips. Oxtercogged on water. That's it. What does that mean? Oxtercogged. I don't know. Should we look that up? Did he make that word up? I mean, I think Seamus Heaney perhaps has been known to make words up or to draw words from the vast lexicon of the English language, often words that have been forgotten or perhaps words that go back to his Irish heritage.So hard to say. Oxtercogged on water [I did look it up and it’s an archaic term meaning held up from under the armpits]. My head was light, my backbone plumb.
Boy nipples bisected and tickled by the steel-zip cold meniscus. What is a meniscus? That word sounds awfully familiar. The meniscus. Let's look it up. Sometimes you have to pause and, you know, if you're really trying to dissect poetry and somebody comes up with a word that you are less familiar with, sometimes you have to look it up. The meniscus. Yes, runners would know about a meniscus. A meniscus is, I guess, part of your knee. Torn meniscus. Yeah, it's a piece of cartilage in your knee. So let's look at how he uses that again. Steel-zip cold meniscus. So he's referring to that piece of cartilage in his knee. And then he goes into another section on the hardscrabble of the junior football pitch where Leo Day, the college... I don't know. Is he referring to an injury that he had in his knee from his days of youth when he was being drilled on the football pitch? So this is, for Americans, this would be soccer.
Upped and down, scissored arms and legs, and spread ourselves greatly. Tautly strung as Francis of Assisi in Giotto's mural. So he's now referring to a famous painting. Maybe I'll put that up on the video. Where angelic neon zaps the ping-palmed saint with the stigmata. Wow. I mean, very few poets can come up with a line like that. This is amazing, amazing English poetry. Zaps the ping-palmed saint with the stigmata. I mean, you can see that Seamus Heaney is truly a master of words. And not only that, he has mastered pretty much all of the various components that go into poetry. He's a scholar of poetry. He's well-versed in other poets. He knows them personally, as the next poem makes clear. He writes essays and makes speeches on poetry.He knows all the various components and parts that go into poems. And he's able to use those masterfully. On sandy mount strand, I can connect some bits and pieces.
My seaside whirligig, the cardinal points, the gray matter of sand and sky, and a light that is down to earth, beginning to fan out and open up. And it kind of reminds me of a painting. Like his poetry is almost like a painting. There's so many references to great painters and artists in this poem. Obviously, he's using poetry as a kind of a painting in words. And he's also invoking and perhaps admiring the great artists of the past.From Da Vinci with his Vitruvian Man to Giotto. It's a poem that pays homage to the great artists of the past.
As he does in his next poem, “Audenesque.” And this one is in memory of Joseph Brodsky. Joseph Brodsky, the Russian poet. I actually had the privilege of hearing Joseph Brodsky give a speech to, in fact, I believe it was our graduating class. Was it our graduate or the class before us? I think we got Elizabeth Dole. But at Dartmouth, I think it was the graduating class before us, the class of 90, got Joseph Brodsky as the keynote speaker. And I remember he gave a speech about boredom, which has resonated with me ever since. He said, just beware of boredom. He wasn't trying to warn the students about success or career or whatever. It was just like, as you get into the forest of adulthood, you may find your life getting more and more dull and boring. It was kind of that message. Anyhow, I should have some Joseph Brodsky, at least one book of Joseph Brodsky's poems in my collection. I'll have to remedy that someday.
So he's writing to Joseph Brodsky in memory. Joseph Brodsky has already passed away. Joseph, yes, you know the beat. So as he begins the poem, he already is describing a kind of familiarity, like he's friends with this guy. Joseph, yes, you know the beat, Wyston Auden's metric feet. So now he's referring to the other great poet, W.H. Auden, the other great English poet whose book, collected poems I do have, as well as some of his other books. So we'll be reading him eventually. March to it unstressed and stressed, laying William Yeats to rest. So now he's mentioning two great English poets, two of the greatest English poets of the 20th century, Yeats and Auden. So I would say for Brodsky, it must be a very flattering if he were alive to know that he's being compared in one verse to Yeats and Auden. And that must show a great deal of respect for by Seamus Heaney for Joseph Brodsky. And he's writing on Yeats' anniversary.
That's interesting. On this day, Yeats' anniversary, double crossed and death march date, January 28 [both poets died on this day]. It's measured ways I tread again, quatrain by constrained quatrain, meeting grief and reason out as you said a poem ought. So notice the rhyme scheme. What is that called when you rhyme, but it's not quite the same sound? There's a word for that. We'll have to look that up. You can find examples of this kind of rhyme throughout the entire. Yeah, so let me look it up. Slant rhyme. Exact rhymes are words that rhyme exactly the same way. Some rhymes do not end in exactly the same way. Example, dine and time. They both rhyme, but not perfectly. Yeah, a slant rhyme, a near rhyme, approximate rhyme. I don't know. Maybe there's a technical term, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. So let's continue. Trochee, trochee, or is it tro-key? Let's look that one up. See, you know that you're dealing with an intellectual poet when you have to look so many words up. You're learning because he's a teacher of poetry. He's not just a poet. Merriam-Webster dictionary. Okay, now we're getting to, so let's listen. Tro-key, so it's [pronounced] tro-key. A metrical foot consisting of one long syllable followed by one short syllable, or of one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable. Apple, that's a trochee. So trochee, trochee, falling thus. Grief and meter order us. Repetition is the rule. Spins on lines we learned in school. So it's kind of, he's also referring to academic poetry here. And you wonder if he's not teasing his friend a little bit in the process. I don't know.It's hard to say at this point, but I kind of get the sense that there's a little bit of teasing here. Friendly teasing. Repetition two of cold in the poet and the world.
Dublin airport locked in frost. Rigor mortis in your breast. So rigor mortis refers to death, of course. The corpse freezing up in death. Rigor mortis in your breast. Why is it connected with Dublin airport locked in frost? I don't know. Is the poet at Dublin airport? Was Brodsky somehow at Dublin airport? Ice no axe or book will break. No Horatian code. See, now he's referring to another poet, Horace. The great Roman poet of ancient times. No Horatian code ode. No Horatian. Boy, that's a hard one to read. No Horatian ode unlock. No poetic foot imprint. Quatrain shift or couplet dint. So it's really a poem about poetry. He's referring to all these great poets.
So in the last one, he was referring to great painters and artists. And in this one, he is making lots of references to great poets and to different elements and components of poetry. Ice of Archangelic strength.Ice of this hard two-faced month. Ice like Dante. There you have another great poet. [Archangel was where Brodsky spent time in a gulag in Russia before leaving the country]. One of the greatest of all. Of all poets, Dante. Dante's in deep hell makes your heart a frozen well. We'll have to look up how and when Brodsky passed away and what his relationship was with Seamus Heaney. But obviously they had a friendship going. Pepper vodka you produced once in Western Massachusetts. So this is a very personal memory of him, of the two poets sharing pepper vodka. With the reading due to start warmed my spirits and my heart. This warms my heart.
Reading this line about the friendship between poets. This reminds me of Chinese poetry. Sometime we'll have to dig into Chinese poetry. It's kind of more of a forte of mine actually, but given that I'm a China scholar. But yeah, this I'm starting to feel a connection with Chinese poetry here. Two poets sharing a glass of vodka, drinking together. What a great memory. But no vodka cold or hot. Aquavit or whiskabog brings the blood back to your cheeks.
So again, he's going back to the death of the poet and his sadness for the loss of his friend. Again, this very much reminds me of Chinese poetry. Politically incorrect jokes involving sex and sect. Everything against the grain. Drinking, smoking like a train. So obvious. So I'm guessing that Brodsky was a chain smoker. I don't remember seeing him smoking during the speech that he gave at Dartmouth College during graduation, but apparently so. In a train in Finland. That's interesting. They were sharing a train ride in Finland. We talked last summer happily. So this is a friend. So Brodsky just passed away. Last summer, they were in a train in Finland. Now he's gone. It's a sad poem, but it's also a happy poem. It's a very spirited poem.
So he's sharing all these beautiful personal memories of his friend and the good times that they had together and the trips that they took. Swapping manuscripts and quips. Both of us like cracking whips. Sharpened up and making free. Heading west for Tampere. West, that meant for you, of course, Lenin's train trip in reverse.So he's referring to Brodsky's origins from Russia. And of course, to the Finland station, right? Lenin's famous trip back to mother Russia to start the revolution, 1917, right? The October Revolution is what he's referring to here. Nevermore that wild speed red. Is it speed red or speed read? Read is one of those words that could be read or red. So wild speed red. Nevermore your tilted head like a deck where mine took off with a mind flash and a laugh. So he's just remembering the brilliance of his poetic friend. It really is an homage. There's a little bit of friendly teasing there, but it's just a loving poem to this friend of his who passed away.
Nevermore that rush to pun or to hurry through all yon. Pun and yon, again, that's the near rhyme, the slant rhyme that we talked about. Jammed enjambments piling up as you went above the top. So enjambments are when a rhyme is, or the end of a line in a verse is placed at the beginning of the next line. Enjambments, I think that's what it means. So it's another poetic term.
Nose in air, foot to the floor, revving English like a car. I absolutely love this line because revving English like a car, he's likening the English language to a car and he's revving it up, right? You hijacked when you robbed its bank. Another metaphor. So robbing the bank of English, right? Russian was your reserve tank. That is such a brilliant line right there that revving English like a car. You hijacked when you robbed its bank.Russian was your reserve tank. Worshipped language can't undo. Damaged time has done to you.
Even your peremptory trust in words alone here bites the dust. Dust cakes still see Gilgamesh. Now this is interesting. He ends with a reference to Gilgamesh. And of course, Gilgamesh is one of the greatest ancient classics of poetry and storytelling from ancient Sumeria. The story of this prince king Gilgamesh who becomes friends with Enkidu who's kind of like a wild version of himself and Enkidu dies. So he is kind of likening their relationship to that of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. And of course, Gilgamesh eventually goes, it's one of these stories where he goes down to the underworld to try to find his friend who has died. It's such a powerful story. So I think, yeah, it totally makes sense given how deep their friendship must have been that he would feel this way that he would invoke Gilgamesh at the end of this poem. Dust cakes still see Gilgamesh. Feed the dead so be their guest.
Do again what Auden said, good poets do. Bite, break their bread. So again, a reference to Auden at the very end.
There's so much to unpack in this poem. It's such a beautiful, powerful poem. It's amazing. It's amazing that I just happened upon this poem which I had never read before and that it kind of brought tears to my eyes at one point. There's just so much story and so much feeling in this poetry, but also the language, his mastery of the language and the form and all of the various things that you can say through language. The feelings you can evoke, but the jokes you can make, the memories you can have.
It's really an amazing poem. So both of these poems really stand out. It makes me want to just spend the rest of the day reading more Seamus Heaney, but I don't have time for that. I've got to grade papers and I have to do a bunch of other things. So that's it for today. I guess this has been a relatively long one.
I don't know how long we went, but pretty long, maybe even 30 minutes just for two poems. We'll see if anybody actually watches this, but it doesn't matter. I'm just enjoying doing this myself. Again, it's just a project for me to dig into the poetry that I have here on my shelf and share it with others. So hope you enjoyed this video and more to come.