From Clearances 5
The cool that came off sheets just off the line
Made me think the damp must still be in them
But when I took my corners of the linen
And pulled against her, first straight down the hem
And then diagonally, then flapped and shook
The fabric like a sail in a cross-wind,
They made a dried-out undulating thwack.
So we’d stretch and fold and end up hand to hand
For a split second as if nothing had happened
For nothing had that had not always happened
Beforehand, day by day, just touch and go,
Coming close again by holding back
In moves where I was x and she was o
Inscribed in sheets she’d sewn from ripped-out flour sacks.
Seamus Heaney
Prompt:
Heaney’s sonnet is less obviously sonnet-like as we read it. How does the form work here? What is
the effect of the rhythm? The imagery? How do they combine to create the tone?
Response 1: Sakura Blossom
What a great poem!
Initially, the poem establishes the speaker’s hope for change and life within this relationship
(imagined as the act of folding the sheet, a joint project that ties the lovers together). The repetition
of sounds and words in the opening lines suggests the repetitive cycle of this relationship. Instead of
rhyming, the first four lines end with words that are fragments of one another: “line/linen” and
“them/hem.” In the first case, the word grows through their folding, and in the second, the words
shrink, which shows that each moment of growth is followed by retreat.
He imagines at the outset that something will be different from what has always been, that the sheet
will be wet instead of dry. He imagines the sheet becoming a sail, a vehicle of movement and change.
That he imagines the sheet will be wet (water being like the ocean, a site of movement. water can
also be seen as a source of life and renewal) also suggests the possibility of voyage. His hopes are
thwarted with the realization that the sheet is dry with the onomatopoeic and aggressive “thwack.”
Things are as they always were.
The syntax that follows is awkward: “For a split second as if nothing had happened /For nothing had
that had not always happened/ Beforehand, day by day, just touch and go,” which suggests that the
condition of possibility motivating the poem is no longer available. It is difficult to read those lines,
and the syntax forces the reader to slow down. He takes the phrase “touch and go,” which in the
cliche suggests volatility, and ironizes it, referring to the action of coming together and moving apart
inherent in folding the sheet.
I find the tic-tac-toe imagery particularly interesting. A game of tic-tac-toe is competitive, as any game
is, but it is also predictable. When adults play this game, the moves are limited and predictable, and
no one usually wins. That seems to be a fitting image for the aggression underlying this relationship.
The sewn-together flour sacks, which can be seen as a synecdoche for the couple’s bed and therefore
relationship, suggest their poverty and the impotent aggression of their relationship (I imagine that
the sewn-together flour sacks might look like a tic-tac-toe board). What is the significance of the fact
that she sews them together? What is her role?
I think Heaney is self-consciously playing with the sonnet form as love poetry and as a source of
epiphany (what seems to happen here is a non-epiphany, if that makes sense). The first line suggests
that the poem will be in iambic pentameter, but the substitutions starting with the first word in the
second line immediately call the form itself into question. I find the substitutions make the flow of the
poem halting, tentative, and uneasy, which might reflect the speaker’s attitude toward the
relationship and toward encapsulating it in a sonnet. The only source of true unpredictability in this
poem is in the speaker’s inability to use the sonnet form to describe the dynamics of this relationship.
Response 2: Yuki Skoshi
Heaney’s sonnet is less obviously sonnet-like as we read it. How does the form work here? What is
the effect of the rhythm? the imagery? How do they combine to create the tone?
Beyond the 14-line trait, I’m hesitant to classify this poem as a sonnet at all.
The argument, if there is one, develops along neither Petrarchan nor Shakespearean lines (quatrains +
couplet or octave + sestet), but instead seems to break down into these units:
 lines 1-7: the unknown persona, while folding linen with a nicely ambiguous “her,” expects
“damp” linen, “but” finds it “dried-out”;
 lines 8-9: he and she, while folding, meet and retreat “as if nothing had happened”;
 10-14: that “as if” is extended as an emblem of the relationship between the persona and,
with clues from the final line, a “she” this reader assumes is the persona’s mother.
Likewise, there’s no traditional sonnet rhyme scheme:
aba slant b cdef f slant (or is it c slant, or d slant? Fun.)fgege slant
–this is fun, so I’m going to follow these rhyme divisions for a second to see if they add meaning. Hm.
That’s interesting. To make it more visual, here’s the poem given stanzaic breaks according to rhyme:
The cool that came off sheets just off the line
Made me think the damp must still be in them
But when I took my corners of the linen
And pulled against her, first straight down the hem
And then diagonally, then flapped and shook
The fabric like a sail in a cross-wind,
They made a dried-out undulating thwack.
So we’d stretch and fold and end up hand to hand
For a split second as if nothing had happened
For nothing had that had not always happened
Beforehand, day by day, just touch and go,
Coming close again by holding back
In moves where I was x and she was o
Inscribed in sheets she’d sewn from ripped-out flour sacks.
Does rhyme add meaning here? It certainly divides the “argument” differently than my original 1-7, 814 reading. Now the argument is:
 1-4: “I” expected damp as I folded with “her”;
 5-10: but there was no moisture; this dry folding brings “us” “hand to hand” “as if nothing
had happened,” which characterizes “our” relationship;
 11-14: “our” relationship is sadly paradoxical, a “coming close…by holding back,” apparently
because “she” – his mother now, we imagine – has been “dried-out” by the poverty and
hardship of her life.
“What is the effect of the rhythm and imagery, and how do they combine to create the tone?”
teacher asks. What a nice, challenging question.
Let’s see. The first line is perfect (and lovely) iambic pentameter, but the next line breaks that spell,
intentionally for sure, most notably in the trochee (?) ending the line (“IN them”). The third line adds
an extra syllable to further destroy the perfection of the opening line. In this increasing rhythmic
breakdown, sound enforces sense: all is not as perfect as the first line suggests it could (should?) be.
“Diagonally” (l.5) is interesting in the sound-sense connection as well. Rhythmically, it doesn’t fit the
iambic well (Latinate words are so often anathema to verse). But it works to “cross,” as diagonals by
definition do, the tone of this poem like the “cross-wind” in the simile in the next line, and the “x” in
the penultimate one.
More examples like this abound: the broken rhythm of line 6 supports the image of the “cross-wind;”
“as if NOthing had HAPpenned,” in lines 9-10, have no music at all, as full of “nothing” sonically as the
sense of the phrase. Several more examples follow, but the final line is the most notable: again, an
extra syllable ruins the basic meter, and the natural stress of “RIPPED-OUT FLOUR SACKS,” four in a
row*, points to the sad root of this “crossed” sadness.
Perhaps the son himself is the deeper root of the mother’s sorry state, the heaviest “cross” for her to
bear: he’s an “x,” after all (l.13), which is a cross of sorts; and that mysterious “she was o” metaphor
might point to her maternal responsibility for him, the “o” being a classic symbol of the female and
the womb. She “bore” him from her womb, and poverty makes him still her “cross to bear.”
You know, I didn’t care for this poem particularly after the first two or three reads. Now I do.
Something to share with my students to try to take the “anal” out of the “analysis.”
Responding to the poem
There are a number of technical poetic terms in here that you may not be familiar with e.g. slant
rhyme, synecdoche, trochee, Petrarchan sonnet. Define them.
Reflection questions
What do you think about the differences between these two interpretations?
Is one more “right” than the other?
Is a third interpretation different from these two validly possible?
What else do you notice or think?
Your response
Using your own analysis skills write a commentary in response to Heaney’s poem. We will finish this
exercise in Tuesday’s period.