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Title: Electric Light
Author: Seamus Heaney
First published: 2001
Dates read: 11. 06. – 30. 06. 2021
Category: first time read, own book, poetry, Irish literature
Rating: 3.5/5
The book in five words or less: a beautiful but mixed bag

My thoughts:

Electric Light is Seamus Heaney’s eleventh collection and the third of his that I’ve read. I’ve previously picked up Death of a Naturalist and North, which were among his early poetry, whereas Electric Light was published in 2001 and is one of his last.

Content-wise, Electric Light covers a wide range of topics, space, and time: In terms of spaces, Ireland and Greece both feature heavily, while time-wise the collection spans several decades and, one might argue, even centuries. Some poems are inspired by or reference ancient Greek literature, some remember Heaney’s childhood, youthful travels, and the first years of his marriage, and others are elegies to friends and family members who died or were lost in the passage of time. In what I would call typical Heaney fashion, close observation of natural phenomena follows right after reflections on language, travel, and the passing of time. Equally typical is Heaney’s willingness to experiment with form – this collection contains eclogues, sonnets and glosses as well as more open poetic forms – and rhythm.

In terms of quality, Heaney’s command of form and language is excellent as usual, but unfortunately that was not enough to make me fall in love with this collection in the same way that I did with Death of a Naturalist and North. I did not really connect with the classically inspired poems (my interest in ancient Greek literature and mythology is marginal to begin with), and a lot of the more personal poems where a bit opaque and hard to figure out without a lot of research into Heaney’s friendships and family life. While I’m by no means adverse to researching authors to better understand their work (it is, in fact, something I do regularly), I also don’t think a biographical deep-dive should be necessary to make sense of a substantial part of a poetry collection.

In short, at times Electric Light just felt like too much work. Who knows, maybe I was just reading this at the wrong time; a reread somewhere down the road might be advised.

Favourite poems: Perch; Lupins; Sonnets from Hellas: 3. Pylos; The Gaeltacht; The Real Names; The Bookcase; Ten Glosses; Audenesque

Read if you like: ancient Greek poetic forms, poetry about travel and lost friends, Heaney’s other works, intertextuality