In what would have been the week of Seamus Heaney ‘s 86th birthday – here is Clive James ventriloquist. Performed at the ICA in London in 1974:
These were the Belfast poets — all called Seamus —
Of whom the leading light was SEAMUS FEAMUS,
Who even now attacked his midday meal:
Two slabs of peat around a conger eel.
‘White spoors of cockle,’
Feamus mumbled,
‘plumb
Tight mounds brine-splashed with goat-frost. Futtled, numb,
I slop the dunt melt of the scurfing bog’s
Black molars to the shred-hung mandrake. Dogs
Like spirochetes torment my afterbirth … ’
Warmed by the joke, his cronies quaked with mirth.
Heaney was, of course, not to only poet to be lampooned in Peregrine Prykke’s Pilgrimage. James was indeed most inclusive when it came to those prominent on the London literary scene of the time.
Glorious stuff.
I have to confess. I miss James more than Heaney! 🤭
I’ve been catching up with James this last week or so. And reading “Peregrine Prykke” for the first time and trying to figure out exactly who is who. Such fun.
And today – great news from the UK Supreme Court that confirms basic reality. All in all – a good day. Cheers Paula!