“Anahorish: Structure & Language Techniques”

Structure of “Anahorish”

The poem is composed in two stanzas of seven lines each. This simple, mirrored structure creates a sense of balance and reflection that complements the poem’s themes.
The enjambed lines within the poem create a flowing, continuous sense of time and thought, a feature typical of Heaney’s poetry and reflective of his fluid relationship with his past.
Lack of a strict rhyme scheme in the poem allows for a more conversational and natural progression of ideas, underlining Heaney’s personal and reflective style.

Heaney uses sensory language throughout the poem to vividly recreate the rural landscape of his childhood. Examples include “sunlit absence”, “pushing through weeds” and “wet pebbles”, calling upon visual, tactile, and olfactory senses in particular.
The poem makes use of figurative language - metaphors and similes. The “sunlit absence” creates an image of light and clarity, yet also signifies a void, effectively illustrating Heaney’s nostalgic yet ambiguous relationship with his past.
The language is marked by a precision of description, with detailed images of nature such as “sky-blue slates” and “flax-dam”. This precision portrays Heaney’s deep sense of connection to and understanding of his homeland.
The use of alliteration and assonance, as in “sunlit absence” and “cool of the yard”, creates a musical quality to the poem and intensifies the sensory experiences it portrays.
Heaney uses the Irish place-name ‘Anahorish’ both as the title and the refrain of the poem, highlighting the centrality of this location to his identity and evoking the intertwining of language, place and identity.