michaeldr Posted 26 October , 2013 Share Posted 26 October , 2013 from today's Guardian see http://www.theguardian.com/books/interactive/2013/oct/26/war-poets-1914-carol-anne-duffy-seamus-heaney Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dust Jacket Collector Posted 26 October , 2013 Share Posted 26 October , 2013 Not a bad effort from the late Nobel laureate but it inevitably seems rather slight when printed alongside one of the finest poems to come out of the War. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred van Woerkom Posted 27 October , 2013 Share Posted 27 October , 2013 Michael, Thanks for the link. Contributions of widely differing quality and often the Original is certainly not inferior. Cheers, Fred Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seadog Posted 27 October , 2013 Share Posted 27 October , 2013 Has anybody any idea what this means (bold) from the first "poem" by Heany In buttoned khaki and buffed army boots,Bruising the turned-up acres of our back fieldTo stumble from the windings' magic ring And take me by a hand to lead me backThrough the same old gate into the yardWhere everyone has suddenly appeared, As for the second one by Duffy what the heck is that about?, cannot be bothered to read the rest. Example "I saw love's child uttered,unborn, only by rain, then and now, all future" Norman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaeldr Posted 27 October , 2013 Author Share Posted 27 October , 2013 Norman, Reading poetry is similar to looking at a painting; each will see something different This is what I see The demobbed soldier returns home unexpectedly (“from nowhere”) to the farm at ploughing time He is not the same man who left; hard years have gone by; he is “unfamiliar” Hearing of his return, everyone comes out into the yard to meet him, but they seem unsure how to greet him. Your quote has omitted the last line - “All standing waiting” The winding is a reference back to the poem's second verse's last line “The windings had been ploughed, furrows turned” regards Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myrtle Posted 27 October , 2013 Share Posted 27 October , 2013 "I saw love's child uttered,unborn, only by rain, then and now, all future.......... Seems to me a description of what could have been. I found the Duffy poem quite poignant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiegeGunner Posted 27 October , 2013 Share Posted 27 October , 2013 Has anybody any idea what this means (bold) from the first "poem" by Heany In buttoned khaki and buffed army boots, Bruising the turned-up acres of our back field To stumble from the windings' magic ring 'Windings' is a ploughing term, Norman. The ploughman sets his rig (pegs out a rectangular area to be ploughed), cuts his first furrow, turns in a broad arc on the headland and then cuts a second furrow back in the opposite direction, some distance apart from the first. He then turns again and cuts another furrow inside the first and then another outside the second, and so on until all the ground between the two rows of furrows has been ploughed. If we have a horse-ploughing expert among us, they could no doubt explain it much better, but essentially I don't think it would be far wrong to describe the rounded rectangular patterns you see on Google Earth images of cultivated fields, for example on the Somme, as modern-day 'windings'. Someone standing on the unturned ground inside the windings (the 'magic ring') would eventually have to either walk out via the headland or 'stumble' their way across the fresh plough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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