One Time, a poem by AM Cousins
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How did Seamus Heaney discover the narrator’s Wexford roots and inspire a poem?
One of my fondest memories of my student days in Carriesford College is of the day our poetry professor, Seamus Heaney, discovered that I was from Wexford, and he told me he'd once sought out my family's neighbour in Kilmore, Mrs. Jeffreys, to talk to her about the old Yola dialect. So I wrote this poem to remember Lizzie Jeffreys, and with apologies to Mr Heeney. One time. Mr Heaney was at
his desk, solid as the sugar loaf, still cheerful after a day of lectures, his eyes crinkled with good humour under a ruffled mop of hair.
What story does Heaney tell about his journey to Kilmore to meet Lizzie Jeffreys?
And to put me at my ease, he told me that one time he had taken the time to drive down south to County Wexford, and then further on to Kilmore. To find a misses Jeffreys, because he'd heard she knew a thing or two about Yola. And as his northern voice rumbled on, I went astray, imagining the poet hunched up against the windscreen of his grave Oaks wagon as it sputtered down the coast road, Wicklow, Arklow, Gory, Ballycanoe, Castle Bridge, over the New Bridge, along the quay, around the crescent, through Madeline Town, to the Rosslair Road. Perhaps he got lost around Killinick and had to pull in and ask if anyone knew of Lizzie Jeffreys, all Ireland ballad singer, keeper of the old stories, last speaker of Yola.
Directed back to the Parton Roads, he trundled on to Randallstown, Tenacre, Gollock, Baliseskin,
Which vivid landscapes and historic sites does the poet describe on his southern road trip?
Past a sky with its burden of wooden crosses. then left on to the Balasque Road, our road to the first house on the right, for tay with misses Jeffreys. She told em how we keeked around corners, corked down to pull ingins, carried war from the strand, retired for our entiet after a feed of bedates slammed with butter. We heached the pump, hatched around the half door, where queer yokes were often queer dull, and would own shock if the griggin went too far. And she would have mentioned the Normans, who gave us dark eyes and elegant French noses, the betrayal of Bagnell Harvey on the salty islands, where she and her sister picked bidates more than a century later, slept in the shed, sang of shipwrecks and lost sailors.
What legends and Yola traditions does Lizzie Jeffreys share before Heaney departs?
Maybe she pointed down the road to Tom Haggard, advised him to see the thatched chapel, and and the Mass Rock in Devrix's field, where lives were lost to keep the faith. And as he was leaving, she would have pressed him to come back at Christmas, when six men rise to their feet at midnight mass to sing ancient carols and a garland of godly songs. I was still lost when the poet stood for me to leave. I never asked, too shy at seventeen, if that time when Heaney took the time to drive down south, if he ever found Lizzie Jeffreys, Queen of Ballads, keeper of our stories, our Yola woman.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
How did Seamus Heaney discover the narrator’s Wexford roots and inspire a poem?
0:00–0:36
2
What story does Heaney tell about his journey to Kilmore to meet Lizzie Jeffreys?
0:36–1:41
3
Which vivid landscapes and historic sites does the poet describe on his southern road trip?
1:41–2:37
4
What legends and Yola traditions does Lizzie Jeffreys share before Heaney departs?
2:37–3:21