Podcasts Culture The Essay Seamus Heaney's 'The Underground'

Seamus Heaney's 'The Underground'

Published: Sept. 25, 2017, 10 p.m.

Don Paterson is an award-winning poet, editor and teacher, but for all his technical ability and the recognition that has been paid to his work Paterson is acutely aware of awe and sometimes envy when he looks at the work of other writers. Here he applies his wit and skills of technical analysis to discussing the five poems he wishes he had written.\nTonight, Seamus Heaney's 'The Underground' .

The Underground

There we were in the vaulted tunnel running,\nYou in your going-away coat speeding ahead\nAnd me, me then like a fleet god gaining\nUpon you before you turned to a reed

Or some new white flower japped with crimson\nAs the coat flapped wild and button after button\nSprang off and fell in a trail\nBetween the Underground and the Albert Hall.

Honeymooning, moonlighting, late for the Proms,\nOur echoes die in that corridor and now\nI come as Hansel came on the moonlit stones\nRetracing the path back, lifting the buttons

To end up in a draughty lamplit station\nAfter the trains have gone, the wet track\nBared and tensed as I am, all attention\nFor your step following and damned if I look back.

from Station Island (Faber, 1984), copyright (c) Seamus Heaney 1984,.