YR 11/ Literature Essay on Midterm break

Some poets achieve a powerful effect by using simple direct language and very little imagery. Explore how the poet creates a memorable poem in this way in Mid Term Break by Seamus Heany.

Mid Term Break by Seamus Heany is a strikingly powerful poem based on the poet’s memory of the death of his younger brother. Heany was at that time, a young boy ‘the eldest away at school’. The childlike language is kept throughout the entire poem, recounting the dreadful events. It’s a memorable poem because of its simplistic yet weighty tone, its harsh theme and the way it appeals to the reader’s attention.

The poem doesn’t reveal itself immediately, but rather, gradually recounts the story a little at a time. From the beginning we can see something is wrong, ‘Knelling classes…’ the reference to a funeral bell already suggests something, the reader immediately is curious and begins to consider who is it that’s dead. My immediate thought was Heany’s father. In the second stanza the poet speaks of his father, ‘In the porch I met my father crying.’ The poem discloses another fragment of the story. This, slow, gradual tone, creates pace which sets the atmosphere of the poem and gives it a sad voice.

Throughout the poem every stanza contains three lines. This use of short stanzas adds to the overall childlike feeling of the poem, but also proposes other things. The three lines symbolize that whoever died was young. In addition the lines also make reference to the way a funeral bell is tolled.

Imagery is seldom used in Heany’s poem and yet there is no need for it, the structure used for every line contributes to make it unforgettable.

‘I sat all morning in the college sick bay

counting bells knelling classes to a close’

The recurrent use of enjambments gives a measured, recessive feeling to each stanza and creates a sense that there is something missing in the poet’s life. It is a grave poem.

Much of the language used is simplistic and direct, ‘embarrassed, counting, drove, whispers’ this gives the impression it’s a child or a young person talking. ‘…Our neighbours drove me home.’ The way the poet speaks gives the poem a personal feeling. However, quotations like ‘I was embarrassed…’ and ‘The ambulance arrived with the corpse, stanched and bandaged’ make the poet sound detached, almost inhuman. It’s not what one would expect in a funeral. The way the author refers to his brother as a ‘corpse’ was included in the poem to give to the reader an outsider’s point of view as well as an insider’s, it also enhances how uncomfortable Seamus Heany must have been. The fact that simple language is used makes small words such as ‘stanched’ have a more powerful effect.

Similarly, imagery is used only once or twice, ‘Wearing a poppy bruise in his left temple’ but the effect of imagery when it is used is very effective and stands out like this quote does, emphasising the colour of the bruise, like a little red flower.

Seamus Heany’s poem can be qualified as a memorable one because of its pace building tension and sadness. The simple language and imagery create a very effective way to emphasise points and words which wouldn’t have stood out otherwise. Mid term break is unforgettable not because of adjective- laden stanzas or multi layered descriptions but because of the great feeling of sadness transmitted to the reader; when the last line is revealed.