Wintering Out: Re-visiting Seamus Heaney's poem 'Good-Night' in the early hours
Plus NEW WRITING EVENT KLAXON
This week I’ve been up early to run my Dawn Chorus writing group. The first poem we looked at on Monday morning when the sky was a deep, deep black and the rain was a steady hush against the window was Good-Night by Seamus Heaney, from his 1972 collection, Wintering Out.
Good-Night A latch lifting, an edged den of light Opens across the yard. Out of the low door They stoop in the honeyed corridor, Then walk straight through the wall of the dark. A puddle, cobble-stones, jambs and doorstep Are set steady in a block of brightness. Till she strides in again beyond her shadows And cancels everything behind her.
Isn’t it beautiful? It’s one of those poems that stops me in my tracks, every time. Heaney takes a seemingly insignificant moment, and observes it, allows us, the reader, to observe too. As ever with Heaney the words do more than simply describe - they act like containers, the images building a bridge into the reader’s mind and leading them to their own experiences. I’m thinking of that first line - ‘an edged den of light’. What do you think of when you think of the word ‘den’? I think of enclosed space, something warm, animal, compartmentalised, subterainian perhaps. All of that work done with just that one word, all of the connotations attached to it, to explain to a reader that this isn’t just light falling from a doorway, it is a container for a moment, a den for this ordinary exchange. I’m fond of thinking of the lines in a poem as a moment in the poem, and each of these lines is telling a story, layering it up with the rhythm of a gentle whispered rhythm. I advise you to read it outloud. Do it now. Feel the latch lifting in your mouth, the edged den, the puddle, cobble-stones, jambs and doorstep - a line that sat in my head all day like a mantra after the sun had risen and the writing group dispersed. Who is this woman whose personality is being so beautifully described with so few words. I think it might be his mother. I can see her competent, no nonsense stride, I can see her power in the way she steps out of the scene, and it is a scene, and the world closes behind her. It reminds me a little of Plath’s Mad Girl’s Love Song:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again.
The way the world is so fully and completely attached to one person. Though of course Plath’s narrator looks out at the world, Heaney’s narrator looks on at it. The craft in Good-Night is astonishing. Heaney was one of my proto poets, one of my leads to the world of poetry. His poems make me want to curl up between the lines. I saw him read once, a long time ago now, in Manchester. It’s one of those memories that is infused with friendship and youth. I didn’t think I was, but I was young - excited, running in my little heels down the street to the university, dreaming of being a poet. I think my first collection, my first pamphlet, Nan Hardwick Turns into a Hare, might have just come out. I’m nt sure, it’s all a bit hazy now. But I do remember this, my husband on my arm, two friends who I am no longer friends with sharing this glorious moment, all of us so completely enamoured by this God of Poetry. The room was packed, a huge hall of folk come to see him and then there he was, old, fragile, he’d suffered strokes and I think he died not that long after. But god, he lit up that stage, the honeyed light fell on him and on the oak of the hall, the high panelled walls, the vaulted ceiling, and you could have heard a pin drop when he read. A core memory. Pints in the pub afterwards, all of us pouring out our thoughts on the reading, on our love of him.
My copy of Wintering Out, and I suggest you immediately go and buy yourself a copy, came from a charity shop. It was battered when I bought it, now it is more so - foxed, creased, browning along the edges. It carries the scent of old book. It is, I think, a first edition though I doubt it’s worth much, but it is also worth everything. The collection, like the poem above, is a pool of light in my life, a place in which I observe a younger version of myself, my joy in belonging to a world of art and literature. I carry it into these cold cold winter mornings, passing the light on. This is what it felt like on Monday, to sit in a room of darkened rooms and read this poem about light.
New Writing Event Klaxon Course!
The Weekend Write Along
January 27th 10am to 3pm UK time.
This is the first of a series of ZOOM events aimed at writers who want to be inspired to write and to have the space to write. The first event features author Polly Atkin who I have invited to come and talk about writing memoir, following publication of her memoir Some of Us Just Fall. She’s a celebrated, internationally recognised award winning writer and a brilliant person all round, well worth coming to hear what she has to say about the craft of writing.
All events begin with a guest speaker talk, followed by a Q&A with the speaker. After that we’ll have two creative writing prompts and time to sit and work together, checking in on progress and discussing our goals. It’s £25 for the day, and you can find more details here:
December Book club
Our book club choice for December is Nicola Chester’s Nature memoir On Gallows Down. Come and chat all things book related in our friendly zoom book club, taking place on 17th December. This event is FREE to paid subscribers of Notes from the Margin, but I ask a small donation from guests. More details here:
What To Look For in Winter
What can we learn from nature in winter? How can we write about it? Where do we exist in the natural world and how do we tie that world to our own lived experiences, physical and emotional?
Winter is the dark time when the world is waiting: a time for survival, a time for for reflection, a time to experience the darker side of the world and to dig in and recognise the strengths in ourselves and the resilience of the world around us. In this four or six week course (depending on the tier you choose) we’ll be exploring nature in poetry and prose using natural and supernatural themes. From migrant birds arriving and leaving, to insects in their subterranean hideouts, the trees speaking to each other out of sight to the rites and folklore around the darkest days. This is your chance to explore the natural winter world both as an observer and in the context of your place in it. In What to Look for in Winter we’ll explore this world through published works, museum artefacts, film, imagery and physical interaction with nature, using prompts and directed activities to write ourselves into the winter months.
The course starts on 3rd January, a chance for you to start the year by prioritising your writing, perhaps, and to face the post new year’s slump with positivity and courage.
If you are a paid subscriber to Notes from the Margin, you are entitled to a discount on the course, as a thank you for supporting me and my writing.
You can find out more about the course, and book your place on it, here:
Lovely piece, Wendy, your joy came tumbling into my room this early morning, and that exhilarating picture of youth, you in your heals, and the poem. I have the book somewhere, I’ll go rooting. And yes, Digging is a favourite of mine too. Reading this, hunting for my book and soaking in a bit of Seamus Heaney will be a delicious start to my day. Thank you.
What a beautiful piece of writing about Swamy’s Heaney and his poetry. An absolute treat to read. I would have loved to hear him read but never did. He was one of my poetry first loves too. ‘Digging,’ just sucked me right in.