It’s about time we did some more work around here.  The Potomac Celtic Festival has come and gone (sheeeew), and it’s too hot to garden, and my Mom-in-law and her beau are flying back to Utah this afternoon, despite the pleading of our pets.  So I’m stepping up to the plate to crow about Seamus Heaney.

Who is one of the best writers in the English language, and one of the best translators of poetry alive today.

And who gets all of the translation contracts I wish I could have.  Not that I’m bitter or anything.  Because I’m not.  Because he is better than I am.  Which is ok.  I’m sure he can’t knit, and there’s no way he makes his own shoes, let alone excellent canoli.

Firstly, Heaney is a Nobel Laureate.  Ok, a little jealous here.  And they have a great bio of him on the Nobel site. 

Also, he has been involved with the Field Day theater and publications since way back in the way back.  Acceptance is very important to me.

And he’s married to Marie Heaney, who is no slouch, lemme tell you, with the mythology.  Read Over Nine Waves if you don’t believe me.  Or if you do.

And he’s a very talented lecturer.  And scholar.  And a wonderful performer reader speaker whatever we’re calling poets who are good at being actual poets, who perform their verse for audiences, as poets have done all through the ages.  Which requires diction and carriage and projection.  There are hundreds of his readings available on the web.  Please listen to him. 

He’s an ollam.   To me, this man embodies the highest rank of bard.  He’s one of the bardiest, way up there with Robin Williamson.

The poems of Heaney’s that most interest me are the bog poems.  That should go without saying.  From them, I turn to his translations most of the time.  Scandalous as it is to say it, I think he’s best at restating the words of other poets.  As one who does the same, that is high praise from me.

Enough blather–I’m going to go listen to my pal Seamus–I can call him that, because we drank pints together at a surreal state function in Dublin back in ’99, which he has probably forgotten, but still.  I’m going to listen to my pal Seamus, and I hope you’ll do the same.  If you have a pint while you do, good on you.  If you go pick up a copy of P.V. Glob’s The Bog People and flip through it a mite obsessively between Heaney readings, you may develop my particular form of insanity.  And that’s fine–there’s room for more.

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