A Poem By Seamus Heaney

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Seamus Heaney was born in April 1939 in
Ireland
He grew up on a small farm in the County Derry where his father was involved in cattle herding
When he was twelve, he won a scholarship to attend St. Columb’s College, a catholic boarding school, where he was taught Irish and Latin
He wrote his first poems as a young teacher in
Belfast in the early 1960s
Heaney is considered part of the “Northern
School”, a group of Irish writers who were born amid the political and religious dividing lines of
Northern Ireland
In 1966, his first major volume was published
Death of a Naturalist and another landmark publication was his book North published in 1975
Over the course of his career, Heaney wrote over
20 volumes of poetry and criticism
He taught at Harvard University (1985-2006) and was Oxford Professor of Poetry (1989-1994)
He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995
He died in 2013 at the age of 74
(*Sources The Poetry Foundation and Nobelprize.org)

I remember this woman who sat for years
In a wheelchair, looking straight ahead

Out the window at sycamore trees unleafing
And leafing at the far end of the lane.

Straight out past the TV in the corner,
The stunted, agitated hawthorn bush,

The same small calves with their backs to wind and rain,
The same acre of ragwort, the same mountain.

She was steadfast as the big window itself.
Her brow was clear as the chrome bits of the chair.
She never lamented once and she never
Carried a spare ounce of emotional weight.

Face to face with her was an education
Of the sort you got across a well-braced gate --
One of those lean, clean, iron, roadside ones
Between two whitewashed pillars, where you could see

Deeper into the country than you expected
And discovered that the field behind the hedge
Grew more distinctly strange as you kept standing
Focused and drawn in by what barred the way.

Heaney uses clear, plain-spoken language, creating an atmosphere of “story-telling” in this poem, beginning with the opening line, “I remember this woman who sat for years” which suggests the poem’s speaker is relating a personal anecdote
• But this is not to say the diction is ordinary as the poem utilizes a variety of sound devices:
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Alliteration – “the same small calves with their backs to wind…” or “Her brow was clear as the chrome bits of the chair ”
Assonanc e – “One of those lean, clean , iron, roadside ones/ between ” or “The stunted, agitated hawthorn bush”
Consonanc e – “…stead fast as the big window it self .”
Internal rhyme and Repetition
– “The same , small calves with their backs to wind and / rain, / the same acre…”
All of these sound devices attract a reader’s eye and ear to individual lines emphasizing
“Field of Vision” is a poem, a work of literature composed of lines and sounds and corresponding images, and not simply a fanciful memory without artistic merit.

• The dominant image in “Field of Vision” is of a woman in a wheel chair confined to a room with a television but who spends the majority of her time staring out a window.
• The speaker says “She was steadfast as the big window itself ” and “Her brow was clear as the chrome bits of the chair” . Both are examples of concrete images and metaphors .
• The first metaphor compares the woman to the window suggesting her routine was unwavering and her presence predictable as if she were just another object placed beside the window itself when the speaker happened to walk past.
• The second metaphor compares her brow or facial expression to the “clear chrome” of the wheel-chair as if she was content to be just gazing out the window, not worried or frustrated or resentful of being confined to her wheel-chair, which is an idea reinforced in the next lines of the poem, “She never lamented once and she never / Carried a spare ounce of emotional weight.”

This image of a woman in a wheel chair, content to be gazing out a window, is then contrasted with the pastoral or idyllic country setting in the poem.
• “sycamore trees unleafing / And leafing at the far end of the lane”
• “the same small calves with their backs to the wind and / rain”
• “The same acre of ragwort, the same mountain.”
(*ragwort is a yellow flowering weed)
This contrast between the woman in a wheel-chair staring out a room’s window and the idealized country setting – a yellow flowering field , cattle lazing beside a mountain – creates a mood of curiosity, awe and wonder as the unspoken question the speaker wants to ask, and by extension the reader: what is the woman thinking and feeling?

The speaker seems to answer this question in the last two stanzas of the poem through his use of an analogy when he introduces another major image – “a well braced gate”. He explains:
Face to face with her was an education
Of the sort you got across a well-braced gate --
One of those lean, clean, iron, roadside ones
Between two whitewashed pillars, where you could see
Deeper into the country than you expected
And discovered that the field behind the hedge
Grew more distinctly strange as you kept standing
Focused and drawn in by what barred the way.
Here he compares the woman’s experience looking out her window while confined to a wheel-chair to that of another person’s experience standing behind an iron gate and being forced to only look at how “the field behind the hedge / grew more distinctly strange as you kept standing / focused and drawn in by what barred the way.”
This analogy, especially the last line of the poem, reveals the poem’s meaning.

The speaker is suggesting the wheel-chair, far from being a handicap or a disadvantage in the woman’s life, has allowed her to see things most others take for granted: the beauty of the world right out our windows . She now sees that world with an enlarged sense of vision or perception.
What, at first, appears to be an undesirable situation or an impediment has actually lead the woman to greater discoveries about the world and herself. From her little room, she is actually more connected to nature than the average person.
The speaker learns this lesson as he calls his observations of the woman “an education”.
If the reader believes the speaker is a poet, the poem’s meaning might be extended to an understanding of poetry as often poems include formal restrictions such as rhyme schemes or metrical patterns; or in the case of “Field of Vision”, a structure based on 4 line stanzas all roughly iambic pentameter (a 10 syllable, 5 beat line).
Such formal restrictions can “focus and draw” a poet’s attention in new directions. This is because they set up barriers or obstacles, “barring the way” of a poet’s thinking , until the poet’s imagination is forced to find a creative solution, much like solving a riddle.

• In conclusion, education and perception are prominent themes in the poem “Field of Vision” by Seamus Heaney.
• The speaker of the poem teaches readers not all education happens in schools and in classrooms. Education involves life-long learning and is as much informed by life experience as it is by whatever universities people attend.
• Also, the way people look at the world influences how they feel about it and themselves. If we are only concerned with the thoughts in our own head and are not actively looking at the world or nature, is it any wonder that we sometimes feel disconnected from life?