Sweeney’s Flight by Seamus Heaney and Rachel Giese.  This book pairs sections of Heaney’s translation of Buile Suibhne Sweeney Astray with black and white photographs of Donegal by Rachel Giese (now Rachel Brown).  It’s been out of print for a while now, so I was thrilled when Powells found me a copy a few weeks ago.  I somehow managed to keep my paws off of it until Halloween.  For once I display willpower.  But once I opened it, it was all over. 

Poetry and black and white photography share a special connection in my head.  I don’t know when the link formed, but I know that each art’s interest in compression and precision raises the hairs on the back of my neck.  Each art, done correctly, results in something akin to religious ecstasy.  For someone with a fractured belief system like mine, such art allows me to get closer to faith than I otherwise could.  Connecting poetry and photography to Irish mythology forces my reaction that much closer to apotheosis.  So yeah, I wanted this book.  It lives with Triur Ban and An Leabhar Mor on an imaginary alter-like book table in my mind. 

Heaney reworked parts of his translation, and happily the entire text is included in the back of the book, so those who have not yet read Heaney’s Sweeney Astray have it all here.  I don’t think Sweeney’s Flight works if you don’t read the full text–this isn’t meant to be just another coffee table book.  So if you’re lucky enough to get hold of a copy, do yourself a favor and read the full text.  I’m always both excited and jealous to read Heaney’s translations, because he’s one of the precious few who are getting to do what I wish I could for a living.  Thankfully, he’s doing it so very well.  Buile Suibhne tells the story of a seventh-century pagan Ulster King who is cursed with madness by a bishop.  T.S. Eliot, Neil Gaiman, and Flann O’Brien have all used Sweeney in their work.  The tale is generally considered to be the most poetic of any of the old Irish texts, and many translators and writers play at trying to do it justice.  Heaney cracked it in the 1970s, and I don’t know who can match him.

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