Poetry is, more or less, up for interpretation. Most poetry is not written like a novel, itdoes not tell a specific story and give you all of the details you need to decipher it. Apoem is there for the reader to interpret on his or her own. After recently reading SeamusHeaneys poem, St. Kevin and the Blackbird, I have taken my own understanding of it,which could be completely different from any one of my classmates understandings.Coming from a Christian background, rather than a Catholic background, I willhave a different interpretation than my Catholic classmates. Catholicism and Christianityare similar, but in Christianity, there are no prominents saints, therefore I have very littlebackground on the actual story of St. Kevin. This is the first, and probably biggestdifference in interpretation between readers.In the first four stanzas, the reader is put in St. Kevins place. All the sensations,the thoughts, that are going through his mind are put into the mind of the reader. Thereader can almost feel what its like to have the blackbird in his or her hand. The readercan sense the link to eternal life - one cycle that has already begun is using him as a linkto the next cycle of birds that is just about to begin. When Heaney speaks of pity, thereader knows the feeling and can empathize with the feeling of St. Kevin, stuck with hishand out until the eggs have hatched and the birds have flown away.The next stanza was critical to my own personal reading of this poem. Not havingany sort of Catholic background, this paragraph, concerning the reality of the poem,showed me that this is only a story, and that it was not merely a poem of fiction. Byasking the reader to imagine because the whole thing is imagined anyhow, it tells methat this is a tale that has been told many times. The author asks the reader to think aboutbeing Kevin. Linked to the previous 4 stanzas, the reader has already imagined themselfas Kevin, with or without ...
