2011-2012
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close,
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on the left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in a cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year.
1. (a) The poem I have studied is Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney. Many images come into my mind when
I think about this poem but the clearest one is when I imagine the young poet noticing his parents: his father crying and his mother unable to. At this stage the young Heaney is in shock and is trying to take everything in. It’s sad I think when he sees his Dad crying and he is surprised at this
In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride—
He is equally surprised by his mother’s inability to cry:
as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs
A related image of the young poet is his embarrassment at all these adults treating him as so important, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
The poem offers me an images of the poet being lonely in the sick-by as the school bell knells and going up to see his brother in the coffin. Heaney is alone, he smells the flowers and then the poppy image comes into his mind,
Wearing a poppy bruise on the left temple
In Northern Ireland the poppy is a sign of remembrance and this image sticks in the poet’s mind in order to give a sad echo of him. 10/10
1.(b) The poet Heaney is vividly brought to life by two strong images in this poem. The first is the image of the young poet in his loneliness
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close
This image gives us a picture of the young poet’s patience as he sits waiting to go home. The image of the bells knelling tells us how aware he is of the sad news that has been announced. The image foreshadows the funeral scene ahead. The image hints at Heaney dealing with the pain of grief. The repeated hard ‘c’ sound creates the effect of the hard breathing of sorrow, a real insight into young Heaney. 10/10
The other image, as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs is of his mother. It shows his extraordinary sense of perception at a young age. This image shows his awareness of his mother as someone who loves him and holds his hand, holding on tightly to a son who is still living. He realises her emotions are blocked as her sighs are tearless. She is so sad that she cannot even let it out. By contrast we see his attitude to his father as the strong man surprisingly knocked out of his stride emotionally by the loss of his other son. . 10/10 20/20
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