Heaney poem hidden in B&B guestbook
New documents ‘transform what we know’ about life and work of literary giant, says Cambridge academic
WHEN two of the biggest names in poetry met up with an eccentric artist in the Irish countryside for fishing weekends, it was perhaps inevitable that they left their mark in words.
Now, such works by the literary greats Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes are to be published and shared for the first time after Cambridge University acquired a “unique” archive of unseen manuscripts regarding their friendship and fishing holidays.
For years, the pair’s friend and expressionist painter Barrie Cooke kept an archive of private letters, poems and drawings in an old shoebox in his home in Co Kilkenny, Ireland.
The material i ncludes l e t t ers between the trio on their love of fishing, which they did near Cooke’s other home in Co Sligo, a draft poem Heaney scribbled down in a guest book which would go on to become Squarings, and a previously unknown poem. The existence of The Island, about Cooke’s house on the River Nore, has startled scholars on both sides of the Atlantic.
The “treasure trove” remained a secret between the men, until Pembroke College fellow Dr Mark Wormald visited Cooke in Ireland shortly before he died in 2014. “He asked me if I would like to see the letters,” Dr Wormald told The Daily Telegraph.
“There was a cubby hole just behind where he was sitting and he pulled out this cardboard box, which was stuffed with all of these letters and poems. After Barrie died, I persuaded his daughters to keep them together, rather than selling them off individually”.
Dr Wormald spoke of his “surprise” at Pembroke being able to acquire the collection of manuscripts, as the UK was increasingly losing out on archive material due to the big cheques being written out by universities in the US.
“They have just got more money than British libraries have. And good on them – they are building up their intellectual property. But it’s frustrating if you are a British or Irish scholar because it means it is at least £1,000 if you want to go and study them.
“British libraries and universities just don’t have the kind of acquisition budgets as your Harvards, Emorys or Yales.”
Emory University in Atlanta is one of many US universities snapping up the early works of British writers.
Emory, funded by Coca Cola, holds a
“considerable amount” of material belonging to the former poet laureate Hughes, as well as the early journals of British Indian writer Salman Rushdie. Its Rose Library archive holds 150,000 print titles and more than 1,350 collections from a range of writers.
In 2014, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas bought British author Ian Mcewan’s literary archive – including abandoned stories, early drafts of novels, letters from other writers and about 17 years of emails – for £1.2 million. The archive includes drafts of all of Mcewan’s published works including his critically acclaimed novels Atonement and On Chesil Beach.
Pembroke College declined to reveal how much was paid to Cooke’s family for Heaney and Hughes’s material, but said it was a six-figure sum raised through donations from Hughes’ sister
Olwyn and Arts Council England, among others. Cooke’s daughters were persuaded to give the college the first bid due to Dr Wormald’s research into the friendship between the trio.
Commenting on the significance of the newly discovered material, Dr Wormald said: “The tenderness of the letters between these men takes my breath away, and it transforms what we know about their work and personal lives.
“Ted Hughes emerges as an absolutely devoted father, a wonderfully generous friend, and someone who lived and breathed nature through fishing. And Cooke’s influence on Seamus Heaney, as an artist who was completely committed to the natural and mythological history of Ireland’s waters, was real and enduring, as was the nourishment Heaney took from their friendship.”