"Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, bumpers knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year."
This poem is so different from what you first expect. Seamus Heaney catches the reader off guard with the title Mid Term Break. College kids see this as a joyous time that they have been waiting for a long time, but then he explains in the first line that he is crying. There is so much sadness in this poem, but there are also little details that give hope, like the baby cooing. The narrator seems out of the loop because he was in college, which made this event even more traumatic.
The one thing that I would like to acquire from this poem is Heaney's ability to build suspense and momentum. Throughout the poem the reader tries to fit the pieces together and in the end one sentences makes you realize everything. It is so incredible how one sentence can stop you dead in your tracks, and it just completely makes the whole poem. This poem portrays a tragic event in the author's life and the structure makes it all the more powerful.
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