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For Seamus

Photo by Daniel J. Harper

Rural Bard: Seamus Heaney suggested we go to his back yard
for these photographs, where he offered to play with his dog.

Ten years ago, a local photographer crossed paths with Nobel poet Seamus Heaney

By Daniel J. Harper

Almost one month ago, on Oct. 5, a 56-year-old Irish poet named Seamus Heaney became an instant millionaire by winning the Nobel Prize in literature. When I heard the news, I remembered my own brief encounter with Heaney 10 years earlier.

On an October day in 1985, I walked up to Seamus Heaney's door in a suburb of Dublin and rang the doorbell. I had an appointment to photograph him for a book on Irish literature, which I was preparing with a colleague.

The house, as I remember it now, was Georgian--tall windows, high ceilings, similar to the others in that Dublin middle-class neighborhood. Nothing particularly fancy, nothing to tell me that this man had reached some prominence in the world of poetry, teaching at UC-Berkeley, Harvard and Oxford. The sidewalk from the street led to a few steps up a landing and then to the front door.

When I got this assignment I'm afraid my knowledge of contemporary Irish poetry was almost nonexistent, and although I had heard of Heaney, I don't think I had read any of his poetry. When he came to the door, he looked nonplused. I had to remind him of our appointment, and then his remarkable face broke into a smile that made all the lines in his face go horizontal, and he welcomed me in.

We went into a high-ceilinged living room that seemed notable primarily for its clutter. It was obviously a place where the papers, books and mail got dumped so the occupant could hurry to the back of the house where everyone seemed to live. We stood next to a large fireplace where I placed the glass of red wine Heaney had generously supplied.

He made no assumptions about how much I might know about him. He looked for common ground, things we could talk about, so he told me he had taught for a few quarters in the United States--Harvard and UC-Berkeley were mentioned--and I realized I was with someone who had achieved certain recognition in the world of poetry and that I should have known more about him than I did.

I regretted my own ignorance and my lack of preparation. I was impressed by his self-deprecating humor, his charm and his utter lack of pretension.

Physically, there was something a bit odd about Heaney; his head seemed just a bit too large for his standard-size body. I was also struck by his eyes, which became elfin-like slits when he smiled--and he smiled often. His hair, even 10 years ago, was going white and it was unruly and abundant.

When he brought in the wine he apologized for not being prepared for me. I felt like apologizing to him for not having read any of his poetry, but I kept my mouth shut and hid my ignorance. He explained that his wife had just had a death in her family, and I could hear women's hushed voices in the back of the house. Obviously, I had come at a bad time, but there was no attempt to escape one more session with a stranger who happened to have a camera. He was generous with his time and entered into the photo session with good nature.

The session went well. A photographer can quickly tell if he's dealing with a prima donna or someone who is relaxed and prepared to cooperate. He was clearly the latter.

Heaney didn't seem particularly vain. He was more than cooperative, though I remember him quietly demurring when I asked him to smile for some of the portraits. Other than that he followed instructions willingly; he even made suggestions.

In fact, after taking some pictures in his living room, he suggested that we go to his back yard, where he offered to play with his dog; he felt the less formal environment might provide better pictures. The small enclosed backyard, the soft Irish light, and Heaney with his dog, ignoring me as they played, seemed just right for my purposes.

Seamus Heaney was born on a farm west of Belfast in Northern Ireland. He was the eldest of nine children and received his education at Queen's University, Belfast. His first collection of poems were published in 1966, when he was 27. Since then he has published nine other collections of his poetry and two books of criticism. His spare, lyric language often calls up his rural past and his Celtic heritage.

In 1972, he moved from Belfast to the Irish Republic, eventually settling in Dublin. He received a lot of criticism for moving, and his fellow Catholics felt he had betrayed them. Henry Hart, the author of Seamus Heaney: Poet of Contrary Progressions, said in a newspaper account that Heaney "experienced a great deal of guilt" when he moved away from Northern Ireland where "The Troubles" had so divided the people and where so many of his friends had been martyred.

Heaney's poetry is rich in rural metaphors; the Wall Street Journal talks about his "turfy sensuousness." But his poetry often suggests something more, something deeper, something vaguely disquieting. In his poem "Digging," Heaney writes about his father and his grandfather before him, cutting peat turf with a spade. He ends the poem with:

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

His later collections, such as North (1975) and Field Work (1979), deal with the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland--from roadblocks and "headphoned soldiers" in armored cars. But he does so (as the Nobel prize committee noted) without allowing himself to fall into the trap of simple political polemic. He writes in "Singing School" about how the people of Northern Ireland inhabit a "land of password, handgrip, wink and nod." In "Whatever You Say Say Nothing," he describes Northern Ireland as a place "Where tongues lie coiled, as under flames lie wicks," and where they whisper Morse.

I left Heaney's home that bright October day energized. I had met a warm human being, not a stereotypical academic, not a stuffy, remote man of letters whose grasp of reality wasn't at all like mine. He was generous, he was interested in me and he wore his achievements lightly.

Our lives had intersected briefly, but during our short time together, Heaney accepted me as a fellow traveler, and his courtesy and lack of pretension during that afternoon of personal bereavement left me feeling a certain debt. Since then, for 10 years now, I've spent odd evenings with his poetry, and my admiration grows at the way he welds and cajoles his rich literary images together.

Huge monetary rewards go to our best athletes and our best entertainers. I take some satisfaction in knowing that at least one poet of poor, rural origins has been given $1 million for a lifetime of word crafting.

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Daniel J. Harper recently retired as English Division Chair at Cabrillo College in Aptos. He is the principal photographer for three books, the most recent of which is Yeats's World (Yale University Press), written by David Pierce.


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