Glanmore

6 Pages 1443 Words

Glanmore Sonnets IV


There are many important elements within any given poem. Seamus Heaney’s poem, “Glanmore Sonnets IV,” is of no exception to this idea. Poetry is, more or less, up for interpretation. Most poetry is not written like a novel; it does not tell a specific story and sometimes fails to give you all of the details you need to decipher it. A poem is there for the reader to interpret on his or her own. After recently reading “Glanmore Sonnets IV” by Heaney I have taken my own understanding of it. This perception could be completely different from any one of my classmates’ understandings, which is reasonably acceptable. To obtain an insightful interpretation of a poem’s content, many elements must be considered. Poetic terms, tone, imagery, language, situation, rhyme scheme and the title’s significance are all elements to deem important when demystifying a poem.
I used to lie with an ear to the line
For that way, they said, there should come a sound
Escaping ahead, an iron tune
Of flange and piston pitched along the ground.
But I never heard that. Always, instead,
Struck couplings and shuntings two miles away
Lifted over the woods. The head
Of a horse swirled back from a gate, a grey
Turnover of haunch and mane, and I’d look
Up to the cutting where she’d soon appear.
Two fields back, in the house, small ripples shook
Silently across our drinking water
(As they are shaking now across my heart)
And vanished into where they seemed to start.

This poem by Seamus Heaney can be explicated through many different approaches. In my elucidation of “Glanmore Sonnets IV,” the poem can be understood through the poetic terms, situation and the larger idea.
To illustrate the poem sufficiently many things must first be understood. First thing to consider to the form the poem is written in. Counting the lines can assist you in determining whether it is a narrative poem, a lyric poem...