UNIT 2
POETRY
‘Mid-Term Break’ by Seamus Heaney PRE-READING: COMMUNICATING 2 Listen to ‘Tears in Heaven’ by Eric Clapton: edco.ie/chdb
4 Listen to ‘See You Again’ by Wiz Kalifa: edco.ie/8wd3 5 What is the message in this song about grief and loss?
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3 What emotions or feelings is the song trying to convey to the person listening?
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1 What do you know about the traditions of funerals in Ireland?
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ACTIVITY
6 Listen to Seamus Heaney reading ‘Mid-Term Break’: edco.ie/yv6m Then complete the personal response quad in your activity book (see page 34). Then share your thoughts with your partner.
All about ‘Mid-Term Break’
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Seamus Heaney is one of Ireland’s most well-loved and respected poets. This poem was written by Heaney about the loss of his brother, who was hit by a car and killed when he was only four years old.
‘Mid-Term Break’ by Seamus Heaney
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I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close. At two o’clock our neighbours drove me home.
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In the porch I met my father crying— He had always taken funerals in his stride— And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
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The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram When I came in, and I was embarrassed By old men standing up to shake my hand
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And tell me they were ‘sorry for my trouble’. Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, Away at school, as my mother held my hand In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. At ten o’clock the ambulance arrived With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. A four-foot box, a foot for every year.
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