Storm on the Island

Storm on the Island

Context

Seamus Heaney was born in Northern Ireland in 1939, the eldest child in what was to become a family of nine children. His father farmed 50 acres in rural County Derry and was a cattle dealer. Much of Heaney's poetry is centred on the countryside and farm life that he knew as a boy. He won a scholarship to the Catholic boarding school, St Columb's College, Derry, forty miles from home: he was here when his younger brother Christopher was killed, as described in Mid-Term Break.

He studied at Queen's University, Belfast and spent some years teaching. In 1965 he married Marie Devlin, and went on to lecture on poetry at his old university, Queen's, for six years (1966 - 72).

In the 1960s he belonged to a group of poets who, he said, used to talk poetry day after day. He has written many collections of poetry, the first of which was published in 1966. His later works capitalise on his knowledge of Latin, Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic and explore words and their significance. His translation of Beowulf, an Old Englishnarrative[narrative:The sequence of events in a plot; a story.]poem, was published in 1999.

In 1982 he began teaching for one semester a year at Harvard University in the USA. He was appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford University in 1989 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.

He has lived with his family in Dublin in the Republic of Ireland since 1976.

Storm on the Island

We are prepared: we build our houses squat,

Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate.

The wizened earth had never troubled us

With hay, so as you can see, there are no stacks

Or stooks that can be lost. Nor are there trees

Which might prove company when it blows full

Blast: you know what i mean - leaves and branches

Can raise a chorus in a gale

So that you can listen to the thing you fear

Forgetting that it pummels your house too.

But there are no trees, no natural shelter.

You might think that the sea is company,

Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs

But no: when it begins, the flung spray hits

The very windows, spits like a tame cat

Turned savage.

We just sit tight while wind dives

And strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo.

We are bombarded by the empty air.

Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.

Vocabulary

The poem describes the experience of being in a cliff-top cottage on an island off the coast of Ireland during a storm. Heaney describes the bare ground, the sea and the wind. The people in the cottage are extremely isolated and can do nothing against the powerful and violent weather.

Structure and Language

Structure

The poem consists of nineteen lines ofblank verse[blank verse:Lines which don't rhyme, usually in iambic pentameter - 5 two-syllable feet per line.]- unrhyming lines each containing five beats or feet. Thisverse[verse:This has two meanings: lines of poetry that form a unit (=stanza), or a broad collective word for poetry.]form (much used by Shakespeare) follows the natural patterns of spoken English, so we feel that Heaney is talking to us.

Language

Think about how the poet uses helps to convey his ideas. Here are some points to consider:

• The title is blunt and explicit. The poem is about a storm on an island. Yet because there is no article ('The' or 'A') before the title, there is a sense that Heaney is not writing about one storm in particular, but about many similar storms. It is an experience he is used to.
• The poem is written in the presenttense[tense:The verb formation which describes the time at which the action occurred, eg past, present or future.]. This creates a sense ofdrama[drama:A play or other performance in which events and dialogue are portrayed by actors on a stage; from the ancient Greek word for 'acting out'. Can also mean exciting or upsetting events.]and also reinforces the idea that storms happen all the time.
• We do not know who is in the cottage with Heaney. He is certainly not alone because he refers to We throughout, but he chooses not to provide us with more details. The wind and waves are the 'characters' in the poem.
• The poem begins in a confidenttone[tone:The mood or manner of a text or part of a text. The author's 'tone of voice' or way in which they expect to be understood. The emotional load carried by a text.]-"We are prepared". Heaney seems to have a 'grit your teeth' attitude! Storms are obviously expected because buildings are designed to be"squat"especially to withstand them.
• Heaney speaks in a friendly tone to draw us in. He uses common conversational tags -"as you see"(line 4),"you know what I mean"(line 7),"You might think"(line 12) - to involve us, and reminds us of our own lives:"the thing you fear"(line 9),"your house"(line 10). Is he talking to the reader specifically, or to people in general? Do you find that this emphasises how isolated he is on the island?
• Many lines are not end stopped but run on from one to another. This is calledenjambment[enjambment:Lines in a poem or play that run on from one to another without pause or punctuation.]. Look carefully at the line endings to see the effect enjambment creates. For example:"when it blows full / Blast"(line 6/7), which conveys the impression of a gust of wind suddenly 'blasting' in at the start of the line."a tame cat / Turned savage", (line 10/11) where the surprise of finding"Turned savage"at the beginning of the line enacts the shock of the cat's sudden change in temperament.
• Despite the confident start, by the end of the poem Heaney admits being afraid:"it is a huge nothing that we fear"(line 19). Perhaps this suggests that the ultimate power of the storm is that it is an unknown quantity. No one knows what the wind will do and what each storm will bring. Are such fears justified?

Imagery and Sound

Imagery

Storm on the island

• Heaney describes the island as"wizened"(line 3), which at first appears to be a complaint (it is no good for growing crops). However, ironically this turns out to be a blessing as the storm approaches:"there are no stacks / Or stooks that can be lost."The earth is personified -"it has never troubled us"(line 3) us with crops, as if it is a considerate friend who wanted to spare them the trouble of harvesting.
• The absent trees are personified too: they are not there to provide the company of a tragicchoruschorus:A group of characters in classical Greek drama who comment on the action but don't take part in it. In a song, the chorus is a section that is regularly repeated.during the storm. By telling us what the island lacks (such as haystacks and trees), Heaney emphasises how bare and barren it is. The earth does not seem so considerate now - there is no natural shelter (line 11).
• Heaney expects us to imagine the sea"exploding comfortably"(line 13). This seems like a contradiction - how can an explosion be comfortable? Is Heaney pointing out to us how little we actually know?
• He uses the simile of"a tame cat / Turned savage"(line 15) to illustrate what the sea is really like. It is not gentle, but spits angrily so that the spray hits the windows of the cliff-top house.
• The wind is seen inmetaphor[metaphor:A description of one thing in terms of another - implicitly comparing the two, but without using 'as' or 'like'. 'Sea of troubles', and 'drowning in debt' are metaphors. Something that represents another thing.]as an enemy fighter plane that"dives / And strafes"(line 16). It is a confusing image, because the 'salvos' and 'bombardments' come out of"Space"(line 17) and"empty air"(line 18) - so where or what does the destructive power come from?

Sound

• There is somealliteration[alliteration:Words strung together with repeated (often initial) consonants, eg Max made many men mad.]in the poem to create different effects. The strength of the houses is reinforced with"rock and roof"(line 2); thesandfsounds indives and strafesinvisibly mimics the sound of the wind.
• The poem mainly consists of short phrases, except for the long phrase beginning"leaves and branches..."(lines 7 - 10). This creates a crescendo, just as thetragic[tragic:To do with tragic drama. To do with catastrophic or sad events.]chorus (line 8) would in an opera as thetension[tension:A feeling of potential conflict between a group of people. In an audience or reader, a sense of potential conflict, or a feeling of anxiety due to what may be about to happen.]builds.

Attitude, tone and ideas

Much of the meaning of a poem is conveyed by theattitudeit expresses toward its subject matter. 'Attitude' can be thought of as a combination of the poet'stone of voice, and theideashe or she is trying to get across to the reader.

A good way to decide on thetone[tone:The mood or manner of a text or part of a text. The author's 'tone of voice' or way in which they expect to be understood. The emotional load carried by a text.]of a poem is to work out how you would read it aloud. Should this poem be read:

• in a solemn, decisive way, showing Heaney's confidence that he will be able to survive the storm?
• in a relaxed, chatty way - suggesting that conversation takes his mind off the storm?
• in a frightened way, betraying anxiety and fear?

In a way all three tones would be appropriate, because the poem starts off expressing chatty confidence in the island's ability to shrug off the storm. Midway through, however, the use of phrases like 'full / Blast, 'the thing you fear', 'Exploding comfortably' betrays anxiety mixed in with the bravado; while by the end of the poem the storm has become frightening and violent - a spitting cat, a strafing dive-bomber.

Ideas

The ideas in this poem concern our uneasy relationship to powerful natural forces, and the feelings of vulnerability and fear we feel in the face of the potentially destructive might of a storm. Have a look at these quotes from the poem, and our suggestions about how these ideas are expressed in each of them.

Themes and Ideas