Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Mid-Term Break

Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying—
He had always taken funerals in stride—
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble.'
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four-foot box, a foot for every year.

One thing that I liked about this poem was the emotion described in this poem. Heaney had very good description of what people go through when a loved one is lost.
One thing that I disliked about this poem was the story being told. It was a good story overall, but it is a very sad subject. If I had a little brother, I would be very upset by this event.
One thing that confused me about this poem was if the little kid was actually dead or not. I was not familiar with this type of funeral where they bring the body upstairs, so I was confused by that.

The main poetic device used in this poem is a paradox. A paradox is an apparent contradiction that is nevertheless somehow true. The paradox used in this poem is the last line in the poem, "A four-foot box, a foot for every year." This seems bizarre, but it is the narrators little brother.