The Haw Lantern

by Seamus Heaney

Poems exploring the theme of loss, meditations on the conscience of the writer, and exercises in an allegorical vein are featured in this collection of thirty-one poems

Genres: Poetry, Ireland, Irish Literature, 20th Century, Fiction, Classics, Nobel Prize

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Works of Irish poet Seamus Justin Heaney reflect landscape, culture, and political crises of his homeland and include the collections Wintering Out (1972) and Field Work (1979) as well as a translation of Beowulf (1999). He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995.

This writer and lecturer won this prize "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past."

Heaney on Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Cindy Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first foray into Heaney’s poetry via book. Absolutely stunning. I was surprised to find how accessible these were.

Heaney was the oldest of 9 children and I am the mother of 9. His series of poems to his mother under the heading Clearances were naturally an unexpected highlight for me. I found number 4 on his changing his grammar to relate to his mother lovely. It kept them ‘allied and at bay.’ That sums up so many relationships.

These will be read over and over again.

[Samir Rawas Sarayji · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a much more abstract collection than I am used to by Heaney. The poems about his mother's passing were more in tune with his established style, they were moving and brilliantly executed; they make up about a third of the collection. I had mixed feelings about the other poems, some were abstract to the point that I simply could not grasp; others, with some effort, became accessible. Still, I prefer his other collections.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another wonderful collection of poetry from Seamus Heaney, on a wide range of subjects, in his usual style. A good one to be my final poetry book from 2020.

Clearances

Part 3

When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.
So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives -
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice collection of poems, my intro to Heaney. I read while I was staying in Dublin, so it fit the vibes quite well.

[Alva McDermott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely sick of only engaging with Heaney through politicians’ speeches I decided to find a book or two of his at home. Call me basic but the lyricism and art of Heaney as a poet has yet to be matched in modern poetry (I am open to be persuaded otherwise).

4.5/5

[Krys]

My first venture into Heaney's poetry, though I've since learned that this might be more opaque than the others. The sonnets from Clearances, dedicated to the passing of his mother, made me weep. I also especially liked the more fabulist poems, like From the Republic of Conscience and The Mud Vision.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always read the books in your Airbnb!! 💚 especially short poetry books that you can pick away at between the holiday antics!!

10 faves I'll be Googling to read again:
- Alphabets
- From the Frontier of Writing
- A Daylight Art
- Parable Island
- The Old Team
- A Postcard from Iceland
- The Summer of Lost Rachel
- A Peacock's Feather
- A Shooting Script
- From the Canton of Expectation

[Katie Karnehm-Esh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little book took me a long time to read, because I had to read every poem at least twice. And now I'm a better person for it. When I need to remind myself of God's love, it's the fact Seamus Heaney was with us for so long.

[Tyrone_Slothrop (ex-MB) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The child, Eireann, Roma

La poesia del premio Nobel irlandese è frutto di una unione miracolosa della cultura arcaica e rurale irlandese (ad in particolare dell'Ulster), della letteratura inglese e della cultura classica più elevata. Heaney era coltissimo e al tempo stesso legatissimo alla propria infanzia, alle proprie radici innervate nella terra irlandese, arcaica e ruvida: convinto, dunque, di poter fare della subcultura rurale di Eireann una risorsa culturale per tutti.
I suoi versi non sono sempre agevoli, specie se letti in lingua originale: sono ricchi di regionalismi dell'Ulster, colmi di simbologie e riferimenti non sempre immediati alla storia irlandese, impreziositi da un vocabolario visionario ma a tratti arduo.
Risulta quindi necessario avere sempre in mente i temi prediletti dell'autore per comprendere il contesto e il senso dei versi: l'origine rurale e arcaica del poeta stesso, il suo essere sospeso tra due lingue (l'Irish gaelico e l'inglese letterario), la sua partecipazione alle tensioni storiche e sociali dell'Ulster degli anni '60-'80 del Novecento.
We lived deep in a land of optative moods,
under high, banked clouds of resignation

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

lovely, though he can be a bit relentless with his Points.

[erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

my first poetry book. it’s officially a top book because of a number of reasons:

1. such haunting writing,
2. hozier recommended it,
3. one poem abruptly using “coitus interruptus.”

[Humphrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any talk of this volume must begin with Clearances, Heaney's masterpiece on the death of his mother, which is both touchingly intimate and stirringly epic. My favorite element of this poem is how its own terse language is evidently an inheritance of the mother's. Hailstones, The Mud Vision, Two Quick Notes, and the Stone Grinder are all very good too. There are a few poems that are more "imaginative" or "abstract" depending on your cover blurb, which are probably the more unique relative to the expected Heaney. Some folks appear to dislike them for this reason, but you'll find compelling moral levies (From the Canton of Expectation) and fresh cleverness (From the Land of the Unspoken) that make these pieces distinctly Heaneyan yet new and interesting. I'm not sure I'd select any of these as favorites, but they're good for the collection.

[Henry Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sorry Gillian.

[Jayant Kashyap · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth so much—this book, which is brilliant in itself, is still worth so much for ‘Clearances’ (3) alone.

[Mo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up Seamus Heaney’s The Haw Lantern because I needed a quick read. I should have known better. From the moment I started, I wanted to savor each poem. I have never read a poet who is as connected to his home place as Heaney was. He grew up in rural Northern Ireland and I in suburban Chicago. Oftentimes he uses words I am unfamiliar with, but his lyrical beauty somehow paints a picture for me anyway, removing the need to read his work with a dictionary in one hand.
His poems about the loss of his mother had me in tears. “Clearances,” in particular, is about the simple things his mother taught him, and how he still missed her long after she was gone.
She taught me what her uncle once taught her:
How easily the biggest coal block split
If you got the grain and hammer angled right.
…
Taught me between the hammer and the block
To face the music. Teach me now to listen,
To strike it rich behind the linear black.

This is a very short collection that I will come back to again and again.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really awesome poems, I am very enthused. Seamus hits it home. I intend to read and reread, and write a worthy review. . . .

[Gabrielle Danoux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Le genre de chose que je ne manie qu'avec précaution: l'éditeur présente Seamus Heaney (ça ne se prononce pas Simusse mais Cheïmeuss (sic), c'est la même racine que "James") comme le poète de l'Ulster. J'ai des réflexes un peu datés sans doute, mais pour moi il n'y a pas d'Ulster, mais une Irlande qu'on appelle Irlande et pas Eire (sauf si vous parlez gaélique d'Irlande) et je me souviens encore de m'être fait ruer dans les brancards pour avoir parlé de "Londonderry" comme c'était marqué dans mon encyclopédie française.
Pour Heaney, il me fait un peu penser à John Millington Synge, pour manier les mythes avec adresse. Pour ce recueil, je n'insisterai guère là-dessus : le propos se fait politique, les drames personnels comme la mort de sa mère, deviennent universels (le terme « clearances » renvoie à des déplacements de population, en particulier aux Highlands). Ne pas oublier qu'avant le Nobel et tout ça, Heaney était controversé et certains l'accusaient d'apologie de la violence. Dans ce recueil, il chante tout de même les balles traçantes. Dans un contexte d'unanimité et de commémoration post-mortem, dans une actualité islamiste, on aurait tendance à oublier que Seamus Heaney n'était pas tiède (il a toujours refusé de figurer dans des anthologies de poésie anglaise) et les « troubles » en Irlande non plus. Un livre à lire au whiskey.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

At the heart of this, Heaney's ninth volume, is "Clearances", a sequence of thoughtfully beautiful sonnets in memory of the poet's mother. Perhaps this should be enough. "Alphabets", "Terminus", "From the Frontier of Writing", "The Haw Lantern", "Hailstones", too, and others: there are plenty of good poems here. However, there are many that simply defeat me, frustrate with their abstractions and allusions, irritate with what seem to me to be mannerisms: all those "or"s and "X and Y"s ("sift and fall", "waft and pressure", "heft and hush"... and, yes, I know that last one is from "Clearances"). Heaney is undoubtedly a great poet, certainly one whose work I do not (cannot?) fully appreciate; but I'm not sure that The Haw Lantern is a great collection.

[Sanjuro · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I make my way through Heaney's poetry, one of the more fascinating aspects is seeing how consistently he seeks to portray Ireland, its landscapes and people, while making subtle shifts in the poetry styles he uses to convey these ideas. Some of these styles work better for me than others. In this collection, I really only loved one third of the poems, but "clearances," a series of sonnets dedicated to his mother after her passing were, for me, absolutely one of the highlights of all of Heaney's work to this point. The collection is short; roughly half the length of the collection to follow, and probably more impacting.

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant]

Now this doesn't stand as his best I'm appreciating moments - The Stone Grinder, the title poem & The Alphabet are stand outs & I like them a lot though I think it's telling that this is more of a diamonds-in-the-rough situation. It's not quite 'rough' so much as 'you can do better' patches perhaps.

Now it is a mourning collection and we know I'm weirdly fond of those - Seamus' sonnet sequence for his mother are sweetly devised (titled Clearances) & I do like the thrumming suggestions of incest in 3 not because I'm a fan of incest I just think he does the Heaney suggestive very nice there. All fears allayed I'm sure.

[Ambriehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

perhaps this shouldn’t have been my first venture into heaney since this, from what i’ve read, is more abstract than a lot of his work. these poems are extremely advanced, but for the ones i could deconstruct... beautiful. highlights:

- a daylight art
- from the republic of conscience
- the summer of lost rachel

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

The master.

[Domhnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heaney Haw Lantern

Pagan thinking is often meaningful in poetry. It is a conceit to imagine the goddess Coventina tipping water from a jug as the source of any stream, though real enough it seems for Grotus to have installed a shrine to her, with stone carving as described in Heaney’s poem. This is in Northumberland, suggesting an English influence, possibly through Ted Hughes. Whatever such pagan thinking lacks in scientific rigour they more than justify by the attitude invoked. We should learn to appreciate the unearned gifts of nature and indeed the benefits of civilization, since either can be lost through neglect. In any case our understanding of modern plumbing is typically not far from magical thinking, as revealed when the water supply goes dry. As for understanding Heaney's poems, sometimes it pays to Google.


This collection of poems is quite whimsical and all the more enjoyable for the absence of weighty struggling. It is not difficult to succumb to the illusion of Heaney's visit to The Republic of Conscience, without feeling obliged to infer profound significance in it, or the suggestion that Socrates on his deathbed regrets not writing poetry.

Eight sonnets in his own style form the heart of this volume, a tribute to his mother of which I found the second especially beautiful, the seventh very moving. The illusion of simplicity here is certainly evidence of an absolutely polished style.

I have encountered the complaint that Heaney published too many poems and I find that a puzzling thing to say. Poets just do keep writing, they use whatever material comes to them and in general they make their own judgement of what to save, or not save. They publish because that is how they live. If I can't quickly find what it was that earned their approval then it will have to be found slowly. I have no quarrel if some are really “five finger exercises.” These particular poems are far more than that.

[Dave Franklin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seamus Heaney’s “The Haw Lantern” (1987) is a collection of poems written between 1983 and 1986. Several of the poems-including the eight sonnet cycle ‘Clearances, inspired by the death of his mother, Margaret Kathleen Heaney, delve into mortality and loss.

In ‘Clearances' Heaney channels powerful emotions into his verse, mining his childhood memories in his encounter with death. In this sequence, there is a tension in Heaney: an ambivalence in his Catholic upbringing and the realities of modernity.

‘Clearances’, notes that while the parish priest at Heaney’s mother’s bedside “Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying,” Heaney himself recalled the times when, as a boy, with “all the others ... away at Mass,” he and his mother did housework alone. Like other Heaney selections, the author often marks Catholic themes, with a vague suggestion of yearning, a desire to return to an idyllic past.

This collection refers to the hawthorn fruit. The tree is important to the Irish landscape, a symbol of autumn and winter. The dignity of the Haw relates to the Northern Irish, in its time of violence and troubles. The image of the lantern evoked by the title is something to which all Irish can relate.

Heaney possibly could have been the greatest Irish love poet since Graves. Read his ‘Scaffolding’:
Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;
Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.
And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.
So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me
Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.

[Gabrielle Danoux · Rating 5 out of 5]

In memoriam Seamus Heaney (13/04/1939 – 30/08/2013), souvenir de lecture « La lanterne de l'aubépine ».
Le genre de chose que je ne manie qu'avec précaution : l'éditeur présente Seamus Heaney (ça ne se prononce pas Simusse mais Cheïmeuss (sic), c'est la même racine que « James ») comme le poète de l'Ulster. J'ai des réflexes un peu datés sans doute, mais pour moi il n'y a pas d'Ulster, mais une Irlande qu'on appelle Irlande et pas Eire (sauf si vous parlez gaélique d'Irlande) et je me souviens encore de m'être fait ruer dans les brancards pour avoir parlé de « Londonderry » comme c'était marqué dans mon encyclopédie française.
Pour Heaney, il me fait un peu penser à John Millington Synge, pour manier les mythes avec adresse. Pour ce recueil, je n'insisterai guère là-dessus : le propos se fait politique, les drames personnels comme la mort de sa mère, deviennent universels (le terme « clearances » renvoie à des déplacements de population, en particulier aux Highlands). Ne pas oublier qu'avant le Nobel et tout ça, Heaney était controversé et certains l'accusaient d'apologie de la violence. Dans ce recueil, il chante tout de même les balles traçantes. Dans un contexte d'unanimité et de commémoration post-mortem, dans une actualité islamiste, on aurait tendance à oublier que Seamus Heaney n'était pas tiède (il a toujours refusé de figurer dans des anthologies de poésie anglaise) et les « troubles » en Irlande non plus. Un livre à lire au whiskey.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Heaney at his best. I think in this collection, published in 1987, he takes another step forward. Climbing poetic heights beyond those he's already reached. This collection runs dark with grief.

There's a sequence of sonnets marking his mother's death that would be worth reading on their own, but the collection is filled with exceptional poetry. There are some allegorical ones that need you to stop and think and find the thing in them that is being talked about. There are poems about the Troubles, perhaps the strongest of which is 'The Song of Bullets'. But 'From the Frontier of Writing' is also strong. There's a short extract from Beowulf, which he was to translate in full later on.

When reading this you know that here is a man that is confident enough in his own abilities to push himself further.

Recommended. I'd almost say start here if you want to begin your Seamus Heaney journey.

[Francisca · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read these poems while dreaking tea and listening to christmas carols. although the weather outside kept telling me otherwhise, this would have been a very suitable winter-y read--especially for this season.

yet, even though there were some specific poems i just adored and bookmarked immediately, i was very surprised to see at the end of my edition the chronology of heaney's publications with this book being the very last one at the moment (late 1980s). i was surprised for the collection felt at times much more juvenile and sentimental than previous works (the first one coming to mind Death of a Naturalist) which made me assume it would have been written during his younger years. there are very poignant poems, both political and personal but there are also many elegies that feel more like the work of a grieving young man rather than an accomplished poet.

and because i kept thinking about my (mistaken) timeline while reading these poems, i didn't enjoy them as much as others.

nevertheless, this collection was a great way of ending my reading year in terms of poetry anyway.

[Trevor Seigler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Years ago, I came across the two volumes of Seamus Heaney's poems that were put out some time before his death. I read both and was moved by his descriptions of life in Northern Ireland. Now, after finding this book at a book sale, I have reason to comment once again on his work.

"The Haw Lantern" is a slim volume that contains poems dealing with life, death, and everything in-between. It's a lovely look at some grim topics and some heartwarming ones as well. I really liked this a lot, especially the sadder poems.

I will keep my eyes open for more Heaney books, and "The Haw Lantern" will keep the two-volume Heaney set company on my shelf for a long time to come.

[Raffy Rillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other's work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives—
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

[tara 🐟 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some bangers in this. Wish I was knowledgeable in any capacity about Ireland. Went from my James Joyce Context Struggle Bus straight to my Seamus Heaney Context Struggle Bus. But that’s on me. These were very good poems nonetheless. Some of my favs:

☆ Two Quick Notes
☆ Clearances (<3) - on my list of top 10 poems about death that I have ever read.

“The space we stood around had been emptied
Into us to keep, it penetrated
Clearances that suddenly stood open.
High cries were felled and a pure change happened.”

☆ The Wishing Tree
☆ From the Canton of Expectation
☆ The Mud Vision