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From the Frontier of Writing -- Seamus Heaney

Guest poem submitted by Janice:
(Poem #1806) From the Frontier of Writing
 The tightness and the nilness round that space
 when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect
 its make and number and, as one bends his face

 towards your window, you catch sight of more
 on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent
 down cradled guns that hold you under cover

 and everything is pure interrogation
 until a rifle motions and you move
 with guarded unconcerned acceleration --

 a little emptier, a little spent
 as always by that quiver in the self,
 subjugated, yes, and obedient.

 So you drive on to the frontier of writing
 where it happens again. The guns on tripods;
 the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating

 data about you, waiting for the squawk
 of clearance; the marksman training down
 out of the sun upon you like a hawk.

 And suddenly you're through, arraigned yet freed,
 as if you'd passed from behind a waterfall
 on the black current of a tarmac road

 past armor-plated vehicles, out between
 the posted soldiers flowing and receding
 like tree shadows into the polished windscreen.
-- Seamus Heaney
Another favourite of mine. Exquisity Heaney: compact, compressed,
beautifully simple yet spiralling with meaning upon meaning. Here an
unfortunately commonplace event - a road check - is compared to the act of
writing, or perhaps the struggle of the act of writing. Again fraught with
tension, "pure interrogation", the poem captures the mood, the silent
watchfulness of a politically unstable area. There are various
interpretations of this poem and I personally find it difficult to pinpoint
what the Frontier of Writing is -- is it a space (mental or physical), an
idea or the act of writing itself? When I reach the last few lines however,
it doesn't even seem to matter -- "out between / the posted soldiers flowing
and receding / like tree shadows into the polished windscreen". It is an
image that is startling and stays with me.

Hope you enjoy it!

38 comments: ( or Leave a comment )

Valerie Clarke said...

This reminded me vividly of a morning in 1987. We were living in Spain at
the time, but on holiday in Ireland – in County Cavan, which is in the
Republic. Thinking to buy cheaper petrol, we travelled the short distance
to County Fermanagh, which is in

Northern Ireland, UK. The countryside doesn’t change, we still travelled
along the same dreamy little country lane, but suddenly there was a check
point, and soldiers peering in at us, guns at the ready, suspicious about
our left hand drive car and our funny number plates.

He was so young, the soldier who questioned us, like a child with a toy gun
pretending to be aggressive. However, when he learned we lived near
Benidorm his young face relaxed and he was eager to tell us his Auntie Jean
had a pub in Benidorm!

Of course we went in and out again from Northern Ireland without problems,
but it was unsettling, and when my husband was asked indirectly whether he
was Catholic or Protestant as he ordered a beer in a pub, we headed back to
Cavan pretty smartly.

Seamus Heaney hits the nail on the head.

Leslie Hansen said...

Reading this poem for the first time, I think it is very powerful. Seamus
Heaney introduces a complelling description of a very realistic and personal
frontier (a checkpoint with armed soldiers), and then builds a metaphor for
the "frontier of writing".

I think the "frontier of writing" relates back to the cathatric power of
writing. We now know from scientific studies involving victims or witnesses
to crimes or serious accidents that repeating a traumatic experience -
whether verbally, in writing, in visual art or in re-enactment - can trigger
the same physiological or biochemical responses as the original experience.
Writing, as a creative expression, can allow us to absorb, defuse and
integrate traumatic experiences.

I beleive that the "frontier of writing" in this poem represents the
boundary where an artist chooses to relive a painful or disturbing
expereince throught the act of writing.

The first four stanzas of the poem are a description of the original
experience (being stopped at gunpoint at a checkpoint). The experience
described is intense in a depersonalized way- "tightensss and nilness",
"pure interrogation", until "a rifle motions" and the writer moves on with
"guarded unconcerned accelleration --".

In the next (fourth) stanza the writer is released, to "drive on to the
frontier of writing / where it happens again. "It" happens again in the
fifth and sixth stanzas, which extend andn personalize the original
experience to include details that couldn't have been seen at the time, but
would likely have been feared - the "guns on tripods", the seargeant calling
in for "data about you", "marksmen training down upon you out of the sun
like a hawk".

And then, for the writer at least, "Suddenly you're through...", through the
waterfall of sheer releif, doubly potent because you now know the full
extent of the dangers that you've passed - experienced, seen, unseen and
imagined. The "black current of tarmac road" gives no guarantee of safety
but at least provides increasing distance, and in reliving the experiences
through this poem, we can start to build our own armour; we'll acknowlege
the reality of the armoured vehicles, but begin to see the soldiers as "tree
shadows" and so start to move back into the perceptions that are necesary to
enable everyday life.

Thank you for posting and sharing this poem.

Gerard Stafleu said...

> I personally find it difficult to pinpoint
> what the Frontier of Writing is -- is it a space (mental or physical), an
> idea or the act of writing itself?

It is at least a place where Seamus Heaney occasionally finds himself. He
writes something new, how will it be received? Will the ever-ready critics
shoot it down with their "cradled guns that hold you under cover"? Or will
they give it a pass, casually motioning with their rifles? You can leave the
frontier by, zen-like, no longer attaching importance to it. The soldiers
and their rifles then disappear, flowing like shadows into your windscreen.

Gerard Stafleu

--------------
Gerard Stafleu
Information Technology Services
The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada

Victa iacet pietas, et virgo caede madentis
ultima caelestum terras Astraea reliquit.

Decency lies shattered and Justice, still unsullied,
is last of the eternal principles to seek refuge in the heavens.

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Miss Steil said...

I think the end, the soldiers as "tree shadows" suggest that road blocks have become so common in Northern Ireland that they have become almost a part of nature; like the trees. Also "shadows" has a dream-like quality and might imply that the experience was quite surreal. I think the enjambement in this poem is significant because it demonstrates the flowing, on-going road blocks; they are endless, just as writer's block always keeps happening to writers. It is a good poem that seems to be about the Irish troubles but is a submerged poem about writing. One of my favourite Heaney poems :)

Miss Steil said...

I think the end, the soldiers as "tree shadows" suggest that road blocks have become so common in Northern Ireland that they have become almost a part of nature; like the trees. Also "shadows" has a dream-like quality and might imply that the experience was quite surreal. I think the enjambement in this poem is significant because it demonstrates the flowing, on-going road blocks; they are endless, just as writer's block always keeps happening to writers. It is a good poem that seems to be about the Irish troubles but is a submerged poem about writing. One of my favourite Heaney poems :)

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