Published by Faber & Faber, 1984, 123 pages.

“I was stretched between contemplation
of a motionless point
and the command to participate
actively in history.”
—Away from It All, quote from Czesław Miłosz, Native Realm: A Search for Definition

The thread that runs through this collection the poet’s role in history and politics. Is the poet an observer or a participant? The title poem—the second part of this book—is set on an island known as Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, and has 12 sections, like the 12 stations of the cross. The third part of this book is in the voice of the legendary mad King Sweeney.

The first section has 25 poems, including ones about the role a poet should play in history, and an examination of Heaney’s decision to move his family away from the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

In Chekov on Sakhalin, Heaney imagines Anton Chekov travelling to the island of Sakhalin, a penal colony, to write about the situation there. But the poet is not able to bear witness in the way he had imagined: his desire to “squeeze / His slave’s blood out and waken the free man” falters, as he “[s]hadowed a convict guide through Sakhalin”. The Troubles in Northern Ireland were a time of violence and repressive policies, so the parallels with Sakhalin resonate.

This section is also full of memories: the thumps of a smoothing iron on an ironing board; running through a tunnel with his lover; and the story of the women who moved to where Heaney lived, a mother and daughters fleeing their home.

In Station Island, Heaney goes back to his past and to a place—Saint Patrick’s Purgatory—that he visited often. He meets the ghosts of people he used to know, some of whom died violently. William Carleton,[1] who rants about “nights spent listening for / gun butts to come cracking on the door, / yeomen on the rampage, and his neighbour / among them, hammering home the shape of things”. A situation that is familiar to anyone who lived through the Troubles, a few centuries later.

The pharmacist William Strathearn, shot in 1977 by Royal Constabulary officers who suspected him of being a member of the IRA, tells Heaney about the night he was killed. Heaney finds himself apologizing to Strathearn: “‘Forgive the way I have lived indifferent – / forgive my timid circumspect involvement’.”

The final ghost he meets is that of James Joyce, who tells him to strike out on his own as a writer.

 “Take off from here. And don’t be so earnest.

“let others wear the sackcloth and the ashes.
Let go, let fly, forget.
You’ve listened long enough. Now strike your note.”

The final section, Sweeney Redivivus, is in the voice of mad king Sweeney, who reigned in Ulster in the seventh century and who was turned into a bird-man and exiled to the trees by St. Ronan’s curse. This was a time when Christianity was replacing pagan beliefs.

Sweeney spends most of his time airborne, his “shadow over the field”. His absence was felt, “my empty place an excuse / for shifts in the camp, old rehearsals / of debts and betrayal”.

Seamus Heaney writes beautifully, with an eye for capturing images and an ear for the sounds of words. They are meant to be be read aloud. The poems are rich and complex, and not always easy to take in fully at a first reading. I read the collection twice to try and understand it better. And I’m not sure I got all of it.

But his poems are a pleasure to read, and I suspect, yield more with each reading.

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[1] Irish author and novelist (1794-1869).