"It Can Entrance You For a Moment..."
"Debate doesn’t really change things. It gets you bogged in deeper. If you can address or reopen the subject with something new, something from a different angle, then there is some hope."
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On Books & Writing •
Bono •
Colum McCann •
Linford Detweiler •
Obituaries •
Poetry •
Quotable •
Seamus Heaney
The Internet is filling up with tears and tributes to the great poet Seamus Heaney, who died yesterday. Here's a short and sweet one, well worth reading, by novelist Colum McCann.
Many thanks to Linford Detweiler for passing along these words... the wisdom of Seamus Heaney, from an interview in The Paris Review:
[…]
Debate doesn’t really change things. It gets you bogged in deeper. If you can address or reopen the subject with something new, something from a different angle, then there is some hope. … People are suddenly gazing at something else and pausing for a moment. And for the duration of that gaze and pause, they are like reflectors of the totality of their own knowledge and/or ignorance. That’s something poetry can do for you, it can entrance you for a moment above the pool of your own consciousness and your own possibilities.
And here are some words about Seamus Heaney from Bono:
...
Some of those phrases are like tattoos for me, worn very close to the heart.