“Our moon was small and far…brilliant on the Pequod’s mast across Atlantic and Pacific waters” (Heaney, 45).
Seamus Heaney’s titular poem from Field Work is a love story in four parts. In each part, Heaney cleverly combines his love of nature with love for an unidentified woman. As with a few of the other poems in Heaney’s collection, it took me a few readings to catch the meaning. One of the collections I easily picked up on was in the last line of the second part of the poem, when Heaney mentions the “Pequod’s mast across Atlantic and Pacific waters” (Heaney, 45). The Pequod is a reference to the whale ship commanded by Ahab in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The woman in the poems is unidentified, as is the landscape. However, Heaney uses vivid details to evoke the image of his native Wicklow countryside. At first, I assumed that the woman and the countryside could be one and the same, but with each reading I quickly realized that they were different entities. A few of the verbs were interesting choices by Heaney, such as “vaccination” and “ring-wormed”. Heaney is obviously looking to evoke a particular image with these words and phrases, and he does so to perfection.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Field Work Response
Throughout the entire set of 4 poems I could definitely understand why Heaney chose the title "Field Work" for not only the poem but for the entire book. Every poem we have read so far has had some correlation to nature in some way, shape, or form. These connections were especially clear to me in "field work". The first poem, to me, was one of the better ones. Not to say that the other ones were not as powerful or anything, it is just that I felt the strongest connection to my previous experiences in this poem. One word that struck me as powerful in the first poem was the word "blackbird" in the second line. It could have been the thought of the SR-71 Blackbird, or the Beatles song, or just the color black and how it describes something hard or tough to me. Whatever it is, it definitely focused my attention on the rest of the poems.
The nature side of it is the easiest to see through all of the references. There is a reference to a leaf or leaves in almost all of the poems in the book. Field work specifically has a leaf reference in three of the four poems. Leaves could represent the growth of a child. When they are young they are very small and still have a firm hold on their parent, or the tree. As they grow older, they get larger and the bond begins to break down until at last the leaf falls and becomes free to float on in the wind. Just a thought.
Whatever you may think of my observation is your own opinion. I never said I was right, its just my thoughts. Field work is a proper title though. All the nature references can only be referenced if you spend time in nature. You must go out and do some field work to gain that knowledge. Great title with some great poems.
The nature side of it is the easiest to see through all of the references. There is a reference to a leaf or leaves in almost all of the poems in the book. Field work specifically has a leaf reference in three of the four poems. Leaves could represent the growth of a child. When they are young they are very small and still have a firm hold on their parent, or the tree. As they grow older, they get larger and the bond begins to break down until at last the leaf falls and becomes free to float on in the wind. Just a thought.
Whatever you may think of my observation is your own opinion. I never said I was right, its just my thoughts. Field work is a proper title though. All the nature references can only be referenced if you spend time in nature. You must go out and do some field work to gain that knowledge. Great title with some great poems.
Seamus Heaney-Field Work
In this poem there are many references to the outside world. Heaney liked to incorporate his poems with scenes from nature. My favorite lines are, "Where the sally tree went pale in every breeze,/where the perfect eye of the nesting blackbird watched,/where one fern was always green/I was standing watching you(page 44)." This part of the poem made me think that it could potentially be on the subject of love. Heaney and the woman may have both been outside in nature and he always found himself staring at her. Wherever they were, there was a train that separated the two of them from one another. So, I think maybe the woman did not she was being watched by Heaney. I had a hard time interpreting the second and third parts of the poem. But I was starting to think that when he was correlating a coin with the moon, he may have been talking about the size. Sometimes if you close one eye and place your thumb to the moon, you can cover it. It looks as though its the size of a quarter. If its a love poem, then its beautiful in a way beyond my understanding.
Field Work Response
Reading Field Work again, had my mind puzzled but working too. I was trying hard to grasp the main points and what Heaney was trying to say. Like I said before, poems are not my strong points, but I'm starting to get the hang a little. Heaney does a great job with giving very vivd imagery of nature. Learning about where he grew up, Northern Ireland, explains why. So, Field Work was just another poem to share his love for nature, He also made a lot of connection to trees. Heaney again connected what a vaccination mark would like in lines 11 &12. "But your vaccination mark is on your thigh, and O that's healed into the bark"(Heaney 53). He tied the O engraved in bark to the bulls eye on ones thigh thats marked when one gets a shot. It made me think back when I had to get a TB test done for my job, and the nurse circled it to be able to identify where the shot was given, just in case my body reacted. The last line of the poem "you are stained, stained to perfection," really sticks out to me. Reading IV made me ponder a minute. I feel like that line was speaking of mark placed on one's body like a birthmark like he mentioned. He also tied the veins in your body crosses just like the veins in a leaf. He did a really great job in connecting nature to the human body, i thought. I read the poem again because I wanted to make sure I did not miss any connections and just because I started to see the poem in a whole another light. Doing the columns and rereading poems does help you to interpret poems much easier, as it did for me with this poem.
Field Work Noticed - Connections
Things I noticed:
nature theme
> several mentions of grasses and shrubs
detailed imagery
compares a woman to a tree/tree to woman and then calls 'her' a wounded dryad
vaccination mark is a wound, sometimes people get bruises
umber is the name of a brownish color
veins in the had look similar to veins in leaves because they do criss-cross
Connections:
"the gatehouse at the crossing" and "the train that comes between us"
has an air of loneliness similar to The Guttural Muse
nature theme like many of his other poems
dryads are nymphs that live in forests more specifically trees
Pequod is the ship from Moby Dick
National “Swine Flu” Influenza Immunization Program of 1976 is something i found when i happened to think of what people might be getting vaccinations for in 1976 when Field Work was published
possibly talking about gardening in some points
> cows on the train: manure for fertilizer, fungus, the last part talks about flowers blooming
Heaney lived for four years in the country after moving form Northern to Southern Ireland**
progressing through time/seasons
**http://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/02/books/heaney-field.html?pagewanted=all
-Samantha Smiley
nature theme
> several mentions of grasses and shrubs
detailed imagery
compares a woman to a tree/tree to woman and then calls 'her' a wounded dryad
vaccination mark is a wound, sometimes people get bruises
umber is the name of a brownish color
veins in the had look similar to veins in leaves because they do criss-cross
Connections:
"the gatehouse at the crossing" and "the train that comes between us"
has an air of loneliness similar to The Guttural Muse
nature theme like many of his other poems
dryads are nymphs that live in forests more specifically trees
Pequod is the ship from Moby Dick
National “Swine Flu” Influenza Immunization Program of 1976 is something i found when i happened to think of what people might be getting vaccinations for in 1976 when Field Work was published
possibly talking about gardening in some points
> cows on the train: manure for fertilizer, fungus, the last part talks about flowers blooming
Heaney lived for four years in the country after moving form Northern to Southern Ireland**
progressing through time/seasons
**http://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/02/books/heaney-field.html?pagewanted=all
-Samantha Smiley
Field Work - Things I Noticed
Within the book Field Work written by Seamus Heaney, there was a poem titled Field Work as well. This poem has four parts and the main thing I noticed in all of them was a lot of reference to nature. Some examples being: fern, moon, Atlantic and Pacific waters, leaves, tree, sunflower, and butterflies. I think that Heaney is very observant and you can see this in his writings because he states his surroundings and uses a lot of imagery depicting scenery. After reading this poem once, I was very confused and needed to look up terms and then read it again and again. After this I broke down the separate parts, stanzas, and lines, and was able to understand a lot more. The most important part to me was that Heaney was talking about a tree but comparing it to a woman. Overall I understand the basics of the poem but I was not able to find a “hidden meaning.”
"Field Work" Reading Respons
"and your veins to be crossed criss-cross with leaf veins" (Heaney, 47).
The poem Field Work by Seamus Heaney has many references to nature. The title of the piece is also the same title of the entire book of works. I thought that this quote was very interesting because it incorporates both humans and nature. If one were to literally criss crossing their veins with the veins of the leaf they would become so committed to nature. The final stanza of this poem talks about staining the back of your hand with the pigment of the flower. As though you are becoming one with nature. Also I thought that it was interesting how in the beginning of the poem it talked about being wounded by marks from vaccination, and then at the end of the poem it refers to being stained to perfection. And you don't normally refer to things that are stained to be perfect. I think that the title of the poem refers to both literal field work and experimenting. When someone is working with their hands and with nature they are said to be doing field work. Also if someone is doing research and collecting data they are doing field work. The narrator is working close with nature and trying to become close with this character that he is watching at the beginning. I wonder why Seamus Heaney choose this poem to also be the title of the entire book of poems?
The poem Field Work by Seamus Heaney has many references to nature. The title of the piece is also the same title of the entire book of works. I thought that this quote was very interesting because it incorporates both humans and nature. If one were to literally criss crossing their veins with the veins of the leaf they would become so committed to nature. The final stanza of this poem talks about staining the back of your hand with the pigment of the flower. As though you are becoming one with nature. Also I thought that it was interesting how in the beginning of the poem it talked about being wounded by marks from vaccination, and then at the end of the poem it refers to being stained to perfection. And you don't normally refer to things that are stained to be perfect. I think that the title of the poem refers to both literal field work and experimenting. When someone is working with their hands and with nature they are said to be doing field work. Also if someone is doing research and collecting data they are doing field work. The narrator is working close with nature and trying to become close with this character that he is watching at the beginning. I wonder why Seamus Heaney choose this poem to also be the title of the entire book of poems?
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