Wider Reading | Exclusive New Poem from Seamus Heaney

It is my great privilege today to bring you an exclusive new poem from Seamus Heaney himself, sent to us this morning by snail-mail from the Faber offices.

 

I see his contribution to Silkworms as a real endorsement from the old guard, pointing towards a new digital age where government expense-cuts cannot deter us from publishing the poetry we love.

 

The Expensive Scandal

 

Until the wrong is put to right

And moralistic justice served,

I shall not, can not, will not write

Of spades and berries and barley byre.

 

Until The Man re-slices the cake

And gives my indie friends a cut

And realises his artistic mistake

I shall not stand as poetry's sIut.

 

I hereby call a poetry strike,

Please hear me, cronies, heed my call.

Until there is a funding spike,

We'll not write a single word at all.

 

You shall not hear a peep from Seamus,

Until the Tories and Lib-Dems

Spread the funding far less shameless,

I've thrown my Nobel in the Thames.

 

-Seamus Heaney

(c) Silkworms Ink 2011

We would like to thank Heaney for contributing this work to us and for the good people at Faber for allowing us to publish it.