2001 Paper 2 - Section 3

The poetry of Michael Longley had an enormous impact on me. I really enjoyed reading his poetry and I thought it was very thought-provoking. Indeed, his work inspired me to reflect on many issues in my own life. The first Longley poem I studied was 'Badger.' It struck me immediately that Longley must be interested in nature and that he must have an unusual perspective on things. I had never heard of anybody writing anything about a badger, especially not a poem! A badger is usually a creature disdained and blamed for carrying disease. However, Longley presented the animal in a unique and mysterious way. The first section of the poem describes the animal's movements, 'his path straight and narrow', and emphasises his strength 'his face lit by the moon, he/Manages the earth with his paws.' As a serious city dweller I had not thought much about the badger and this section made me visualise his movements along with the 'fox's zig-zags' and the 'arc of the hare'. He also made the image of the badger seem romantic to me as it passed through moonlight 'between cromlech and stone circle'. In section two Longley continues to describe the badger in an oblique manner. He mentions different parts of the badger: his intestine, heel and 'a head with a price on it'. I thought this line was particularly interesting because it hinted at the fact that the animal is hunted, a fact that is disturbingly clear in section three. The final section intrigued me; Longley used birth imagery to convey the badger's violent death: For the digger, the earth-dog It is a difficult delivery Once the tongs take hold, The tongs were being used to deliver the badger to his death, not as expected, to produce new life. I also loved the metaphor of the 'earth-dog'. There is sympathy for the badger as he is pictured with 'His limbs dragging after them' and there is condemnation of the violence and its disturbance to nature in the line 'So many stones turned over.' It made me feel sorry for the creature and made me angry with the perpetrators of this violent act. A similar feeling was evoked in me when I read what is possibly my favourite poem of Longley's, 'Wounds'. Longley strikes me as a very compassionate man who feels indignant about the tragic loss of human life. I certainly felt this way after reading the poem. In the first stanza Longley recounts two ' … pictures from my father's head'. These stories arose from his father's experiences in two world wars. The first portrays young soldiers continuing to hold on to their prejudices as they prepare themselves to die. The next image is much more poignant. Longley describes a priest: Resettling kilts with his swagger-stick, With a stylish backhand and a prayer. Over a landscape of dead buttocks The indignity of their deaths really affected me. I thought of the rows of young men whose lives were cut short and the futility of their deaths. In the second stanza Longley continues to concentrate on the horrific and undignified nature of death but he changes the setting. He dramatises two murders from the violent troubles in the North. The poet seems to write about these incidents in an observant, almost detached manner. Yet he includes certain details that cannot fail to move you. The lines 'Three teenage soldiers, bellies full of/Bullets and Irish beer, their flies undone' stress the unexpected, undignified deaths of the young men. The combination of the commonplace with the dreadful makes the violence more awful. The image of the bus conductor settling down in front of the television before 'He collapsed beside his carpet-slippers' is highly disturbing. It really makes you reflect on how many ordinary people's lives have been affected by the troubles. I continued this reflection when I studied the poem 'Wreaths'. In this poem Longley responds to three sectarian killings in the North. What I find interesting about this poem is that it presents the 'Civil Servant' who was murdered by the IRA., the Roman Catholic 'Greengrocer' who was killed by the UDF and the ten Protestant 'Linen-Workers' who were assassinated by the IRA. Longley, even though he is Protestant, is un-biased. He presents all deaths as brutal atrocities and once again shows his deep compassion for all living things. In 'The Civil Servant' trivial domestic detail is set alongside graphic descriptions of death. 'A bullet entered his mouth and pierced his skull' as 'He was preparing an Ulster fry for breakfast'. 'The Greengrocer' is preparing for Christmas as he is gunned down by 'the death-dealers'. Through the small detail of the falling 'wallets' and 'small change' the chaos and fear 'When they massacred the ten linen workers' is made clear. This poem made me think for a long time about what it must have been like for those victims and their families. They are personalised and become much more than a statistic or a brief radio report. However, 'Wreaths' is not only about violence. It is also about Longley's father. He recalls: … the memory of my father's false teeth Brimming in their tumbler: they wore bubbles And, outside of his body, a deadly grin. Memory of his father and his death feature largely in Longley's poetry and I think his father was a significant influence on him, despite the fact that he died when the poet was only twenty. The inspiration for 'Wounds' came from the poet asking 'the simple question: if he were alive now, what on earth would he make of the troubles.' In this poem the feelings he had for his father are evident, 'I touched his hand, his thin head I touched.' This is what I love about Longley. In that short simple line he conveys so much: the vulnerable deterioration of his father along with his son's desire to comfort him. This is also powerfully conveyed in 'Last Requests.' There is a dark humour in the poet mistaking his father motioning for a cigarette as 'I thought you blew a kiss before you died.' We feel the poet's pain in the final line, 'Couldn't reach you through the oxygen tent.' This line made me very sad and made me think about my own father and his mortality. The father-son relationship is explored in a very different way in 'Ceasefire.' It explores a fascinating episode from Homer's 'Iliad' where Priam goes to Achilles to beg for his dead son's body. Once again Longley uses images in relation to death that you would not expect. Hector is 'Wrapped like a present …' You certainly would not think of a dead body as a present but it emphasises the importance of bringing the body home to Troy. This poem is also a powerful appeal for peace and reconciliation in the North. It made me realise how noble forgiveness is at times. These insights came frequently as I read Longley's poetry. He made me fully aware of the horrendous realities of the troubles in the North, just as he made me ponder on the harsh realities of death. He inspired me to take more interest in nature from my reading of poems like 'Badger' and 'Carrigskeewaun'. He constantly moved me as he wrote about his father and he consistently amazed me with his fresh and unusual imagery. I learned much from Longley and I am genuinely pleased I studied his poetry.