Black Magic: Two Poems by Seamus Heaney

Read this essay on Substack!

Read the poems: "The Early Purges" and "Limbo."

Topics mentioned:

-Poetry careerism in the 21st century

-"The Iron Lyre"

-The perennial appeal of the Gentleman Farmer Poet

-Heaney's bog poems

-The value of exposure to death

-Rural vs. Urban morality

-"The Need of Being Versed in Country Things" by Robert Frost

-Piscine Christianity

-"At the Fishhouses" by Elizabeth Bishop

-My Yucatan travelogue

-My most recent Sleerickets appearance

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My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet:
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)