2. Bogland Straight to the point easy to understand.
For T.P Flanagan
We have no prairies There’s no grassland
To slice a big sun at evening-around. Giving a
Setting the scene horrible look generic
of the Irish
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encroaching horizon, perception, however…
Bogland. Invading horizon,
stopping the bogland,
Is wooed into the cyclops' eye
from continuing.
The sun covers the Of a tarn. Our unfenced country Free country,
landscape, watching it. Is bog that keeps crusting untouched by
Between the sights of the sun. man.
They've taken the skeleton
The first indication Of the Great Irish Elk A ancient Irish
of human influence deer.
Out of the peat, set it up
in the natural An astounding crate full of air.
landscape.
Butter sunk under
The Speaker More than a hundred years Describing
appreciates Was recovered salty and white. what “they’ve”
the The ground itself is kind, black butter found.
landscape.
3. They will never find
Long sounding vowels, coal only “
highlighting the Melting and opening underfoot,
waterlogged
sounds of the bogs. A Missing its last definition trunks”.
long squelch. By millions of years.
They'll never dig coal here,
The decomposed
Only the waterlogged trunks trees of the Bogland.
Discoverers, who are
digging to find, what? Of great firs, soft as pulp. Final stanza, 3
Coal? Or just curious Our pioneers keep striking full stops in 4
of not knowing what lines, contrasting
Inwards and downwards,
they will find? how the bog is
endless.
Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
It will never come to
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage. an end, there will
The wet centre is bottomless. always be digging to
be done.
4. • Free verse- no rhymes, showing how the bog
is unpredictable, you don’t know what your
going to uncover.
• There’s limited punctuation, allowing the
poem to flow and run easily.
• Tone: simplistic, admirable.
• Themes: Irish landscape and history.
5. Who is T.P Flanagan?
T.P Flanagan was a famous Irish painter, who specialised
in painting Irish landscapes.
Sadly Flanagan died in 2011, at the age of 80 years.
Though ‘Bogland’ was written in 1969.
Irish poet Seamus Heaney, said he was “a teacher and a
friend” whose work held a “deep personal significance”.
Also that “Terry has also been very much a personal
friend as well as an artistic presence.”
T.P Flanagan taught at St Mary’s college where Heaney's
wife, Marie attended a few years before.
6. Form, Language, Structure
• There’s seven four line stanzas, with similar length
lines.
• The language creates interesting images in the readers
mind- “To slice a big sun at evening”.
• The poem narrates how the “pioneers keep striking
inwards and downwards” into the bogs, and what they
find.
• The speaker doesn’t seem to resent the pioneers, but
instead seems interested.
• Language is easy to understand, with references to
Ireland and its heritage.
• Heaney has produced nice imagery.
7. The Background of ‘Bogland’.
• Heaney grew up in rural northern Ireland. On his farm,
Mossbawn, there was plenty of Bogland, which his
family gathered peat from, as a form of fuel.
• Ireland has more bog than any other country in
Europe, besides Finland, so now has a great scientific
significance.
• It has been said that Heaney is interested in bogs, not
only because he originates from a Irish farming
background but also because he has seen pictures of
objects found in bogs.
• Heaney had talked of the bog being a symbol of a
consciousness that retains and observes.
8. There is continual references to Ireland, and historical
knowledge of the bogs throughout the poem. For example:
-”Great Irish Elk” was one of the largest deer that ever lived, it
originated from Ireland and has been carbon dated to of lived
7,700 years ago. Skeletons of the Great Irish Elk have probably
been found within Bogland.
-Also Heaney refers to “Butter sunk under More than a hundred
years”. I believe Heaney means Bog butter. Bog butter is a waxy
substance which is found in peat bogs such as Irelands. They
have been found, dating back to the 2nd or 3rd century, it is
thought to of been an ancient way of preserving food in wooden
barrels and burying them in peat bogs.
This highlights Heaney's interest in what you can find within the
Irish bogland.
