Shame about Seamus...

It's rare when we hear about a "poet" anymore. In the case of Seamus Heaney, there was actually a brief mention here...that he died.

According to Wikipedia, "Heaney's books make up two-thirds of the sales of living poets in the UK."

Need I mention that he is unknown in America? Is there a living poet who IS known in America? Maya Angelou!

Maya's Hallmark card poetry sometimes gets an airing (and it needs it). Not that I was impressed by the two samples of Seamus that Wikipedia offers:

He's been called the greatest poet since Yeats.

I was not too big on Yeats, either. Although my college English professor was, and so was Phil Ochs. So I shouldn't be proud of my ignorance. Although...Phil actually put music to a poem by Poe, and another by Alfred Noyes. Not Yeats.

To a slight degree, some potential poets simply shifted to writing lyrics. Some, both words and music. Not a bad alternative, considering you can make a lot more money with a song than a poem...and the samples of Heaney above aren't exactly catchy.

So-called "poets" simply have the tendency to write prose and put spaces in odd places.
It does make it
seem more pro
found and you see quirky words form
ulate by spaces
But is that poetry? Have we pro
gressed because we now say poetry need not rhyme...the same way Jackson Pollack need not paint a recognizable face and drip shit on a canvas instead?

Great, that poem where Seamus compares a real man digging the Earth for a potato...and a poet with smooth hands who isn't laboring too hard....but maybe is doing something useful digging with a pen. For the truth. For beauty. And for the principle of "publish or perish." The guy found a refuge in Academia, lucky man. Just walk around looking glum and sensitive, and in old age grow a wild beard.

Oh! OH! Shame about Seamus.
But can you blame us
(SOME of us) for finding the SUM total of his writing
not too enlightening?