The Blackbird of Glanmore

Question 1

Context

Seamus Heaney

Answer 1

His poems focus on the detail of life and of family. The Blackbird of Glanmore is from his District and Circle collection, which won the TS Eliot prize in 2006. Glanmore is a place in Ireland near to where Heaney grew up.

Question 2

Autobiographical

Answer 2

Heaney’s brother died at the age of four

Question 3

Blackbird

Answer 3

The blackbird could be a messenger between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Question 4

“In the ivy when I leave”

Answer 4

As well as a sense of fate there is also contentment and reassurance - the blackbird will be waiting

Question 5

Form

Answer 5

Alternating between five-line and one-line stanzas.

The single lines create a feeling of a set of refrains (repetition), but different.

Question 6

Repeated structures

Answer 6

The repeated structures also create a sense of return, so that the poem keeps coming back to the passing moment in which it is set.

Question 7

First and last line/circular composition

Answer 7

The first and last lines of the first stanza, “On the grass when I arrive” and “In the ivy when I leave”, are also the final lines of the poem.
This circular composition emphasises the completeness of the moment. It also suggests the cycle of life.

Question 8

Half rhyme :

“talkback”, “comeback”, “goldbeak”.

Answer 8

The tight, united form is echoed by the use of half-rhyme throughout the poem, which is particularly noticeable in the penultimate (second to last) stanza: “talkback”, “comeback”, “goldbeak”.

Question 9

Sound

Answer 9

There are places in the poem where the sound of the words suggests an influence from Old English poetry, which used alliteration and combined nouns ( “Haunter-son” and “Hedge-hop”)

Question 10

“Hedge-hop”

Answer 10

a perfect description of a blackbird, and its two-syllable alliteration mimics the bird’s movement.

Question 11

the car lock “clunks shut”

Answer 11

Here assonance of the ‘uh’ sound emphasises the onomatopoeia of “clunks”.

Question 12

“little stillness dancer”

Answer 12

The paradoxical (seemingly contradictory) image of the “little stillness dancer” is thought provoking, and captures the idea that the blackbird, even though it stays where it is, is filled with energy and the potential for movement. Coining metaphors like this is one way in which Heaney creates a fresh look at nature.

Question 13

“shadow on raked gravel/In front of my house of life”

Answer 13

The blackbird becomes a more ominous symbol in the reported words of a neighbour who in the past had linked “yon bird” with the death of the narrator’s brother. This portend (indicator) of death can also be picked up in the narrator’s description of himself as a “shadow on raked gravel/In front of my house of life”; shadows are often metaphors for death or ghosts.

Question 14

“house of death”/”one gone to him [God]”

Answer 14

The imagery of the translated lines about the “house of death” also repeat the idea of a journey between life and death, confirmed in the narrator’s memory “one gone to him [God]”.

Question 15

Hope - “my house of life”

Answer 15

he “house of death” is then mirrored and reversed by the phrase “my house of life” towards the end of the poem. Whether it’s a metaphorical or real house, this image undoes the narrator’s sadness, and is a reminder of the his good fortune at living a longer life.

Question 16

“ready talkback”

Answer 16

espite associations with death, the poem favours the energy and life of the blackbird. There is the bird’s “ready talkback”, which suggests cheekiness, and although there is “panic” at the sound of the car lock, it is “shortlived”.