Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Friday, April 12, 2004.

It's the birthday of Seamus Haney.

And so today we have one of his poems to round out our week's series of ectrastic poetry.

The poem is called A Basket of Chestnuts, and it's a little bit different from the other

poems we featured this week, and that it is a poem about a portrait of the poet.

In 1973, portraitist Edward McGuire was commissioned to paint Haney, and he went to visit Haney at his home, where they had a conversation about what the portrait might look like.

The final product was finished the following year and can still be seen in the Ulster Museum in Northern Ireland.

And it's a striking portrait. McGuire has sometimes been compared to Hans Holbein in the way that he

subtly incorporates symbolic images into his portraits.

This portrait of Haney features blackbirds, which are a significant northern Irish symbol.

Haney himself is postured in this bent way that conveys poised tension.

This is a young Haney still early in his career, a lot to accomplish and a lot to prove.

And you can sort of see it in his posture, but his set determined eyes and jawline

give you the impression that he's going to pull it off.

And he's also got a book in his hands.

It's resting on this crisp, creased and stitched tablecloth.

It's really lovely.

The book is open maybe a quarter of the way or a third of the way, which maybe is indicative of

how much of Haney's life had been lived already

and how much was yet to live, maybe how much of the story of his life was yet to be written, perhaps by him.

Here's the poem. I'll read it once. I'll make a few comments about it and then read it one more time. This is a basket of

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