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Seamus Heaney’s “The Given Note”

A Visual Interpretation

Julian Peters

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On the most westerly blasket, in a dry-stone hut

He got this air out of the night

Strange noises were heard by others who followed, bits of a tune coming in on loud weather

Though nothing like melody. He blamed their fingers and ear as unpracticed, their fiddling easy

for he had gone alone into the island, and brought back the whole thing

The house throbbed like his full violin

So whether he calls it spirit music or not, I don't care. He took it

Out of wind off the mid-atlantic

Still he maintains, from nowhere

It comes off the bow gravely,

Rephrases itself into the air.

“The Given Note” from Seamus Heaney, Door into the Dark (London: Faber & Faber, 1969). Used with permission.

Julian Peters self portrait

Julian Peters is an illustrator and comic book artist living in Montreal, Canada, who focuses on adapting classical poems into graphic art. His work has been exhibited internationally and published in several poetry and graphic art collections.

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