{"id":5683,"date":"2013-04-10T18:04:12","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T22:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=5683"},"modified":"2013-04-10T18:04:12","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T22:04:12","slug":"day-10-national-poetry-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-10-national-poetry-month.html","title":{"rendered":"day #10, National Poetry Month ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Seamus Heaney — Nobel Laureate that he is — doesn’t get the attention in popular poetry circles that folks like Dickinson and Frost do. And yet he’s a wonderful poet — a people’s poet as well as a poet’s poet.<\/p>\n

His craft is amazing (how does he DO it??), and his content familiar to anyone who’s farmed, who’s been to old farms, who’s lived w\/ the stories of elders.<\/p>\n

Poetry is a practice for me — in the traditional Buddhist sense of the word dana<\/em>: a giving, w\/out thought of return. To read it is to honour someone else’s gift. To write is to send it out w\/out knowing where it will find a home. Dana<\/em> also means to share your time, your energies, for the benefit of others. Share your gifts, in other words. Surely that’s true of a master artist like Heaney.<\/p>\n

Here’s his lovely poem ‘Digging’:<\/p>\n

Digging<\/strong><\/p>\n

Between my finger and my thumb<\/p>\n

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.<\/p>\n

Under my window, a clean rasping sound<\/p>\n

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:<\/p>\n

My father, digging. I look down<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds<\/p>\n

Bends low, comes up twenty years away<\/p>\n

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills<\/p>\n

Where he was digging.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft<\/p>\n

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.<\/p>\n

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep<\/p>\n

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,<\/p>\n

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By God, the old man could handle a spade.<\/p>\n

Just like his old man.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My grandfather cut more turf in a day<\/p>\n

Than any other man on Toner\u2019s bog.<\/p>\n

Once I carried him milk in a bottle<\/p>\n

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up<\/p>\n

To drink it, then fell to right away<\/p>\n

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods<\/p>\n

Over his shoulder, going down and down<\/p>\n

For the good turf. Digging.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap<\/p>\n

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge<\/p>\n

Through living roots awaken in my head.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve no spade to follow men like them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Between my finger and my thumb<\/p>\n

The squat pen rests.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll dig with it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seamus Heaney — Nobel Laureate that he is — doesn’t get the attention in popular poetry circles that folks like Dickinson and Frost do. And yet he’s a wonderful poet — a people’s poet as well as a poet’s poet. His craft is amazing (how does he DO it??), and his content familiar to anyone…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[493,22],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,1297,318,1190,494],"class_list":["post-5683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dana","category-poetry","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-dana","tag-national-poetry-month","tag-poetry","tag-seamus-heaney"],"yoast_head":"\nday #10, National Poetry Month ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Seamus Heaney -- Nobel Laureate that he is -- doesn't get the attention in popular poetry circles that folks like Dickinson and Frost do. And yet he's a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-10-national-poetry-month.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"day #10, National Poetry Month ~ - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Seamus Heaney -- Nobel Laureate that he is -- doesn't get the attention in popular poetry circles that folks like Dickinson and Frost do. And yet he's a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2013\/04\/day-10-national-poetry-month.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-04-10T22:04:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2013\/04\/ploughing.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"day #10, National Poetry Month ~ - Beginner's Heart","description":"Seamus Heaney -- Nobel Laureate that he is -- doesn't get the attention in popular poetry circles that folks like Dickinson and Frost do. 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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