READINGS OF THE WORK BY PHILIP HARVEY

Here is an email, unchanged, from Max Richards (1937-2016) received in March 2014. His preliminaries include [perhaps only Hugh Underhill, who crops up in the dream needs to read this] which is odd seeing how he sends it to me as well after a conversation about Seamus Heaney. Or is it a memo to himself? I am starting to find that Max’s emailing habits had an element of disclosure of things his correspondents had not necessarily thought would be forwarded on, reported back, &c. Now, all of that is fairly immaterial, though tread carefully. Hugh Underhill was a colleague at La Trobe University, author of ‘The Problem of Consciousness in Modern Poetry’ (Cambridge University Press, 1992). Do we sleep or wake? I think the dream has a paradisal, peaceful feel. as mentioned today in chat with Philip -  best wishes from Max  [my only face to face time with SH was in the signing queue years ago at the melb writers' festival, when I had a pile of his books in my sa...

Electric Light, by Seamus Heaney.   (Faber ISBN 0571207626, Farrar, Straus & Giroux ISBN 0374146837, published 2001) Review by Philip Harvey first published in Tin Tean. Seamus Heaney keeps rolling along. His ordered cadences and grounded tones, we can also say ground tones both in the sense of gravelly and well-honed, come at us familiarly in this new collection. Linguistically, Heaney continues to behave as though the major poetic fashions of his own lifetime never happened. At times, the brilliant and meticulous measure of his lines sound like the last word in Johnsonian impeccability. We always find him with both feet firmly on the earth, a case of gravity empowering gravity. Certainly, at the end of the 20 th century, it’s a relief to find a poet who remains so consistently sane. Some of those infamous preoccupations, synonymous with being Heaney, occupy these 79 pages. First, there are the wily analogies he uses to talk of Ireland, “the child that...

Human Chain, by Seamus Heaney.  (Faber ISBN 978-0-571-26922-8, published 2010)   Early in this book Seamus Heaney describes ‘The Conway Stewart’, a newly purchased fountain pen, “The nib uncapped, / treating it to its first deep snorkel / In a newly opened ink-bottle.” Heaney may live in the age of the email and the text message, but his interest in writing implements goes back to the start, when he compared his pen to a spade that digs deep. He is avid for pencils, paper, the traditional means of getting a poem on the record. Importantly, this poem is reprised later in the collection when he uses the voice of Colum Cille, the great saint of Iona: My hand is cramped from penwork. My quill has a tapered point. Its bird-mouth issues a blue-dark Beetle-sparkle of ink. Wisdom keeps welling in streams From my fine-drawn sallow hand: Riverrun on the vellum Of ink from green-skinned holly. My small runny pen keeps going Through books, through ...

This poem was read aloud at Janet Campbell’s funeral in Hamilton in Victoria in December 2006. Janet was a great lover of poetry all her life, a great reader of poetry, and she read everything of Seamus Heaney. Indeed, when she worked in Melbourne or London bookshops Janet would grab hold of Faber pre-publication copies of Heaney if they came into the backroom, and disappear for days, copying lines onto postcards for her friends, transferring lines into her lifetime of diaries. Diaries that were also a lifeline. Janet read everything, but Heaney was one of the regulars. Seamus Heaney keeps a tight line. He is rarely though completely opaque and the way into this poem is the word ‘longshot’. We only find in the second of the two poems that we are being asked to look at two photographs. Or, at least, poems that are like photographs. Or, better still, strong memories that have taken on in the mind the nature of longshots. The two poems in one are reminders of close relationships. ...

Disclosure, by Ann Lewin   Philip Harvey   Written by request for the students at St Peter’s Eastern Hill Melbourne studying for their Trinity College Certificate in Theology & Ministry, February-April 2011, under the direction of Bishop Graeme Rutherford.   Disclosure Ann Lewin Prayer is like watching for the Kingfisher. All you can do is Be where he is likely to appear, and Wait. Often, nothing much happens; There is space, silence and Expectancy. No visible sign, only the Knowledge that he’s been there And may come again. Seeing or not seeing cease to matter, You have been prepared. But sometimes when you’ve almost stopped Expecting it, a flash of brightness Gives encouragement. Ann Lewin is drawing on an established tradition in modern poetry of using the kingfisher as a sign of anticipation, breakthrough, recognition, wonder, and revelation. Her understanding of prayer comes from the contemplative and mystical tra...