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My Limericks with Seamus Heaney

I went for the coffee and donuts, and traded some rhymes with the man signing books of

poetry. I didnt know who he was. He was Irish, I knew he had some poems about the

problems Ireland has had over the years. I had some free time and heard about the literaryreception; Im literate, so I went.

I had a plate with an onion bagel as I walked up to the poet and said, There once was a boy

from Dundalk, who didnt know quite how to walk.

Its the Brits fault, think about it, he replied with a finger in the air for emphasis as he looked

at me directly. He was smiling. I like to play with words, and so did he.

I thought he enjoyed a little unvarnished wordplay among all the fawning fans asking for his

scribble in the front of a book. I started again, There once was a boy from Peru, who didnt

know quite what to do, he went to his mama, who showed him a Llama.and the rest of the

rhymes up to you.

He laughed. I cant remember his reply to that. It was a sunny April day as we chatted in the

schools library with a couple of dozen other people around we were against a low book case.

Coffee makes my brain race. Words spill out.

We talked about Lord Montbatten being killed by an IRA commando team in a targeted

assassination in 1979. He talked about Mountbatten being a colonial master in India enforcing

English rule, that he was not just a random fisherman with a title. Heaney spoke aboutMontbatten being the last British Viceroy of India, an unelected dictator from a foreign

country I mentioned that Lord Montbatten had been the British official in charge of the allied

occupation of Vietnam at the end of WW2, and Montbatten re-armed Japanese Imperial Army

troops to put down a Vietnamese Trotskyist working class uprising in 1945 in Saigon.

I didnt know that, he said to me as if a little piece of an important puzzle had been added

He told me that he ran a writing school for poetry during the summer in the West of Ireland,

and that I might enjoy coming to the gathering. I was hoping in my head that I had enough

money for gas to travel home in my car that night, not how to pay for a writers retreat acrossthe ocean.

A faculty member joked with me a few days later, you spoke more than he did. I still didnt

know who the man was. I knew he was Irish, I knew he had written poems about the unhappy

history of Ireland. I had his translation of Beowulf on my shelf at home. What a story.

7/30/2019 My Limericks With Seamus Heaney

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Later I found out that this witty man had a Nobel Prize in Literature. Honestly, I am not

impressed by that. President Obama has a Nobel Peace Prize. The people who vote on the

winners are Norwegian elite and politicians from the government; they pick whatever is trendy

with that clique. Still, good people do win for worthwhile efforts. Henry Kissinger got a Nobel

Peace Prize. Imagine that.

The very next day I got an official notice from my department head that I was not being offered

a job the next year and they had to warn me by that date. My wild days at free literary

discussions would have to move on. I always knew I would end up passing poetry along as a

teacher for a hedge school.

But over the years I really have thought about his answer to my words: There once was a man

from Dundalk who didnt know quite how to walk. Heaneys answer:Its the Brits fault,

think about it, really has made me think about that answer. Did he mean the man couldnt

walk because he was hurt by the British soldiers? Did he mean that the long term Britishexploitation of Ireland lead to the Irelands population to be largely poor and unable to afford

adequate health care?

Did he mean that Irish people blame everything on the British rather than taking responsibility

for themselves? I have thought about that off and on over the dozen years since Heaney said

them.

I still dont have an answer to Seamus Heaney. But hes on my shelf, in the library, and alive in

my memory.