The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
These are the lines from "Digging" by Irish poet and 1995 Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney.
He died at the age of 74.
This is what Heaney had to say about writing:
The main thing is to write for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust that imagines its haven like your hands at night, dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast. You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous. Take off from here. And don’t be so earnest.
My favorite line of Heaney's advice: "And don’t be so earnest."
ReplyDeleteI.M.H.O, some of our writers are caught up in bragging about their “earnest” daily writing rituals that no one cares about.