Seamus Poem by gershon hepner

There once was an Ulsterman, Seamus,
from the North, like the prophet called Amos.
Though neither are British,
their scandals are skittish,
and, though not from Limerick, famous.

Four-fifths of the verse that in Britain
is published by Seamus was written.
Of all that is Irish
I’m somewhat admirish,
but by Seamus I’m totally smitten.

In Hebrew the name of this Seamus
means “names, ” and the word is spelt sheymus
when written in Yiddish
we Jews, when we’re iddish,
revert to, so goyim won’t shame us.


Karl Miller, reviewing Dennis O’Driscoll’s book “Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney” (TLS, December 19 & 26,2008) , points out that the poet from Mossbawn in Derry, had become, by the time he moved to a Dublin House with stays at Harvard, a happily married man with three children and Seamus the Famous, a name conferred by Clive James. “A writer whose sales are thought to amount to four-fifths of the poetry published in this part of the world, a man greatly liked. There were bound to be complaints about him.”

Sheymus is the Hebrew for holy names of God, which may not be destroyed but buried or stored in a genizah.

12/22/08