Poems of the Decade

• What is the peom out of the bag about?

  A sort of autobiography by Heaney

  It is split into 4 sections

  The first section talks about how he viewed childbirth as a kid as coming from Doctor Kerlin's bag

  The second section talks about Greek shrines as hospitals and how poetry in itself is a cure. He talks about his trips to Lourdes and Epidaurus and his hallucination of Dr Kerlin

  The third section talks about sending grass to a patient

  The fourth section is him as a kid again by his mother's bed
• KEY QUOTES- Out of the bag:

  • Section 1: "All of us came in Dr Kerlin's bag"
  • Section 1: "Once turned his eyes upon me"
  • Section 1: "pendent, teat-hued infant parts strung neatly"
  • Section 2: "poeta doctus ... the cure by poetry that cannot be coerced"
  • Section 2: "epiphany occured and you met the god"
  • Section 2: "the baby bits all came together swimming into his soapy hygienic hands"
  • Section 3: "Hygeia"
  • Section 4: "The room i came from and the rest of us all came from"
  • Section 4: "new wee baby the doctor brought for us all when i was asleep"
• What is the poem Journal of a Disappointed Man about?

  The poem follows an individual observing a crew of men working. The poem ends as unresolved and has a deeper meaning of the handling of disappointment and the unresolved nature of life
• KEY QUOTES- From the journal of a disappointed man:

  • "paraphernalia" vs "Let go or Hold tight: all monosyllables"
  • "Monsters"
  • "indifferent and tired, so tired of the whole business"
  • "secret problem"
  • "Gaze down like a mystic"
  • "left the pile still in mid-air, and me of course"
• What is the poem The Deliverer about?


  The poem starts in Kerala, India where babies who are disabled, dark skinned or female are abandoned or killed. There is a girl who was buried by her mother who gets taken to be adopted by an American family, when this girl grows up she looks at tapes of herself when she was younger and talks about the corrupt state for women
• KEY QUOTES- The Deliverer:

  • "crippled or dark or girls"
  • "covered in garbage, stuffed in bags"
  • "They are crying"
  • "The strangeness of her empty harms"
  • "Toss the baby to the heap of others"
  • "Trudge home to lie down for their men again"
• What is the Llamas Hireling about?

  A farmer gets a helper on a farm, in his mind he was a warlock which was a metaphor for his homosexuality. The farmer kills the hireling and goes to confession
• KEY QUOTES- Llamas Hireling:

  • "I grew fond of company that knew when to shut up"
  • "disturbed from dreams of my dear late wife"
  • "I knew him a warlock"
  • "to go into the hare gets you muckle sorrow"
  • "I carried him in a sack that grew lighter at every step"
  • "Bless me, Father, I have sinned. It has been an hour since my last confession"
• What is Please Hold about?

  A man attempting to make a call and being left with the generated message. He grows frustrated. This symbolises the dehumanisation that technology has brought about. The final lines emphasise the lack of care
• KEY QUOTES- Please Hold:

  • "This is the future, my wife says" repeated 3 times
  • "I can find nothing to meet my needs"
  • "someone real who is just as robotic"
  • "giving no options in the guise of countless alternatives"
  • "The only way you can meet your needs is by looting"
  • "Grow old. Grow cold. This is the future. Please hold"
• What is On her blindness about?


  A son talking about his mother being blind and her hatred yet perseverance for it. This goes on until she dies where the speaker says the family hopes she is watching over them
• KEY QUOTES- On Her Blindness:

  • "like a Roman"
  • "the locked-in son"
  • "pretended to ignore the void"
  • "saw things she couldn't see and smiled"
  • "visit exhibitions, admire films, sink into television"
  • "its lovely out there"
  • "up to us to believe she was watching, somewhere, in the end"
• What is Eat Me about?

  A guy who has a fetish for making his girlfriend fat. At the end this becomes too much and the girlfriend kills him and then eats him
• KEY QUOTES- Eat Me:

  • "A candle for each stone in weight"
  • "watch my broad belly wobble, hips jugger like a juggernaut"
  • "his pleasure, to watch me swell like a forbidden fruit"
  • "a beached whale on a king-sized bed craving a wave"
  • "he drowned in my flesh"
  • "There was nothing else left in the house to eat"
• What is Chainsaw versus the Pampas Grass about?

  The poem is at a surface level about a man using a chainsaw to cut down grass. However, symbolically it is about conflict between genders but also between nature and the manmade
• KEY QUOTES- Chainsaw versus the Pampas grass:

  • "grinding its teeth in a plastic sleeve"
  • "dropped the safety catch and gunned the trigger"
  • "tangle with cloth, or jewellery, or hair"
  • "The blade became choked with soil or fouled with weeds"
  • "New shoots like asparagus tips"
  • "The seamless urge to persist was as far as it got"
• What is the poem Material about?

  A woman reflecting on her mother and how she is as a mother. The deeper meaning of the handkerchief is a symbol of care which the speaker says she does not have
• KEY QUOTES- Material:

  • "hanky meant a thing of cloth"
  • "dried up hankies fell in love and mated"
  • "male ones: serious and grey and larger"
  • "bought biscuits i would bake if I'd commit to being home"
  • "died not leaving handkerchiefs but tissues and uncertainty"
  • "This is your material to do with, daughter, what you will"
• What happens in To my Nine-year-old Self?

  The speaker is talking to her younger self and is explaining what happened to her but wants to leave her to be innocent and happy
• KEY QUOTES- To my Nine-year-old Self:

  • "you must forgive me"
  • "rather....rather...rather"
  • "I have spoiled this body we once shared"
  • "we made a start but something else came up"
  • "Truth is we have nothing in common"
  • "I leave you in ecstasy of concentration slowly peeling a ripe scab from your knee"
• What happens in A Minor Role?

  The speaker is suffering from a long-term illness and uses the metaphor of a supporting character as a way of viewing life and talking about her illness
• KEY QUOTES- A minor role:

  • "Im best observed on stage"
  • "asking pointed questions politely"
  • "pretendings all well, admitting its not"
  • "yearnings for a simpler illness"
  • "saying thank you for anything to anyone"
  • "I am here to make you believe in life"
• What is the poem Giuseppe about?

  Giuseppe is about the conditions which war pushes men to. It talks about eating a mermaid when we know it was a normal woman. This reflects on suffering
• KEY QUOTES- Giuseppe:

  • "Sicily in World War 2"
  • "she screamed like a woman in terrible fear"
  • "a ripe golden roe"
  • "someone tried to take her wedding ring but the others stopped him"
  • "starvation forgives men many things"
• What is Effects about?

  The poem is about a son and his mother. He holds her hand as she is dead and recalls her life and her suffering up until she dies
• KEY QUOTES- Effects:

  • "chopping, slicing, washing up" ..... "giving love the only way she knew"
  • "they had taken off her rings"
  • "my turn came to cook for her"
  • "stared unseeing at the television"
  • "that was her way to be with him again"
  • "grew up and learned contempt"
  • "rubber band...smudged black ink"
  • "a nurse bring the little bag of her effects to me"
• What is the poem Genetics about?

  The poem is about a person seeing both their father and their mother in themselves. The speaker believes that they are the evidence of their parents being together. At the end the speaker turns to her partner and asks them to have a child together
• KEY QUOTES- Genetics:

  • "My father's in my fingers, my mother's in my palms"
  • "to separate lands, to separate hemispheres"
  • "in me they touch where fingers link to palms"
  • "my body is their marriage register"
  • "mirroring in bodies of the future"
  • "we know our parents make us by our hands"