Bogland

I liked the concept behind “Bogland” and “Bog Queen.” I’ve never seen bogs and I was kind of intrigued. I checked out google images and I have to say the images ranged anywhere from beautiful (of the Irish countryside) to disturbing (think “Bog Queen”). I can see how the concept of bogs and the poet’s ties to the Irish landscape would go hand in hand.

“Bogland” opens with the comparison between Irish landscape and American landscape. He talks about how “the eye concedes to/Encroaching horizon” (3-4) as opposed to a vast, unending horizon that we image out west. It is the first time that I have ever gotten a visual picture by contrast and I liked it. He continues that image with a description of the horizon being “wooed into the cyclops’ eye/Of a tarn”(5-6). Again, we see how the landscape (and possibly the history) of Ireland is drawn inward.

The next stanza we get the image of an Irish Elk being drawn, somewhat preserved, from the peat. He begins to remember a time when they found butter that had been recovered, “salty and white” (15). This can be seen as reflective of the history of Ireland, the preservation of natural history and also of humankind.

Finally, in the last two stanzas, Heaney describes the pioneers stripping through the layers of the bog, never able to reach a bottom. He describes the bogholes as “Atlantic seepage” (26), which is “bottomless” (27).