Storm on the island- Seamus Heaney

• Poem is about a community of islanders who are preparing for a storm, investigating the battle of nature vs man
• Poem centres on the islanders experience of the storm, and how they appear to get them regularly, and how this impacts life on the island as they wait for it to pass
• Heaney is a northern irish poet who wrote mostly about the landscape and rural life of Ireland
• Heaney's early poems focused on ancestry, identity and nature, with nature as a metaphor for human nature, using it to explore identity.
• Poem can be seen as based on 'The Troubles' in Ireland
• 'we are prepared'

  -arrogance in the declarative-too confident, shown by how bold and declarative they are in their ability to overpower nature

  -also betrays their fear-they have completely adapted their lives to the purpose of resisting nature
• 'blows full blast'

  -plosives give a sense of violence and aggression and suggests nature is attacking the island-the plosives also resemble bullets which shows weather is as deadly as a weapon
• 'tragic chorus'

  -continues the theme of community vs isolation in the situation of a natural disaster

  -link to 'The Troubles' in Ireland being neverending
• 'spits like a tame cat turned savage'

  -mistaken belief they had tamed nature-then it turns against them

  -replicates how islanders never owned nature-it was always more powerful then them

  -split the tamed and known nature before from the violent aggressive storm
• There is no consistent rhyme scheme, which reflects how order cannot be enforced upon nature, it is more powerful than humans, so they have no way to control it

  -lack of rhyme scheme relates to the omipotence of nature which contrasts with the very controlled rhythm, which works to show human power resisting power and chaos of a storm
• The poem begins optimistically but the tone shifts to one of fear

  -this shift could reflect the final calm before a storm and also the inability for the islanders to prepare for it properly because they cannot see it coming
• Heaney makes many conversational tags (typical of northern irish speakers) 'you might think', 'but no', 'you know what i mean' which draw the reader in and includes them in the poem

  -this may suggest that everyone can experience the impact of nature
• Heaney uses the simile 'spits like a tamed cat turned svage' which seems oxymoronic because a tame cat shouldn't be aggressive

  -if the cat is a simile for nature, Heaney is suggesting nature has a tame and decile side so isn't always like this, as maybe the islanders have angered it
• Heaney personifies nature by making it seem like it intends to attack the island

  -for example, it 'pummels' and the island is 'bombarded' which implies that the storm has a malicious intent to harm and damage