Seamus Heaney's "The Given Note"
In which, even if you misread a word, you can still receive the poem
Remember how you can read poetry any place? This is me reciting verse in the room next to my daughter’s violin lesson. I like the way her instructor’s feedback punctuates the reading. There’s a particularly well-placed “Wow!” Could this be a new kind of blackout/fill-in poetry? Adding words overheard while reading aloud? Let’s say yes.
Most of the time, I like to say that poetry can be, at least initially, received on its own, without context or technical help. But this poem really benefits from understanding some of its background. Read here about Great Blasket Island and the tale of the tune that gave itself to a wandering fiddler.
And if you’d like to listen to a version without background talking, here I am reading the same poem in the music section of the public library. Don’t miss the moment in the end when I realize I’ve been mispronouncing “gravely” all this time. Turns out you can still inhabit a poem, even when you get the words wrong.
The book I’m reading from was a local bookstore discovery this week: Poems to See By, in which each poem is given visual interpretation by comic artist Julian Peters. It’s a feast for the senses, and you’re probably learning by now how much I appreciate visual art as an inroad to poetry, and vice versa.
Onward through our days, poetry friends! What tune will be (or has been?) given to you? Be sure to listen for it.
I love that book so much!!!