Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Rustum Kozain

READING HEANEY’S “NERTHUS”

READING HEANEY’S “NERTHUS”

READING HEANEY’S “NERTHUS”

Afternoon sun of Ohio’s August
daubs the classroom with early rust.

Eight of us bristle, apprenticed
to nail the world to its sentence.

Poet’s poet, our teacher hands us
a copy each of Heaney’s ‘Nerthus’.

A chill creeps in me as she reads.
From Heaney-soil, that concrete dark,

an unseen ash-fork staked in bog:
my first portents of winter north.

*

We have all heard the name
but not Heaney’s Great Chain of Verbs.

We stall. And do not fathom
the quiet mesh of kesh and loaning

that lull and push of middle-voice
that verb say

the long-grained never static
of the poem’s non-finite aesthetic
Close

READING HEANEY’S “NERTHUS”

Afternoon sun of Ohio’s August
daubs the classroom with early rust.

Eight of us bristle, apprenticed
to nail the world to its sentence.

Poet’s poet, our teacher hands us
a copy each of Heaney’s ‘Nerthus’.

A chill creeps in me as she reads.
From Heaney-soil, that concrete dark,

an unseen ash-fork staked in bog:
my first portents of winter north.

*

We have all heard the name
but not Heaney’s Great Chain of Verbs.

We stall. And do not fathom
the quiet mesh of kesh and loaning

that lull and push of middle-voice
that verb say

the long-grained never static
of the poem’s non-finite aesthetic

READING HEANEY’S “NERTHUS”

Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère