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56. How Dads Shape Our Authentic Artistic Voice
We talk about fatherhood and the artistic voice through the lens of two poems, one by Seamus Heaney (“Digging”), and the other by Seth Wieck (“Names of Crops”; see below). We compare the two poems and sprinkle in a little of our own stories as we go. We hope this will encourage you to consider the ‘soil’ from which you came and how it might nourish your own authentic artistic voice.
Here is Seamus Heaney reading “Digging”:
And here is “Names of Crops” by our very own Seth Wieck:
Names of Crops
For Christopher Timothy
At a mile, measured
along the muzzle plane of my father’s arm,
iron-sighted between forefinger and thumb,
a dog-speck loped across the nail of his index,
fully-formed, flea-sprung
from that pate of keratin.
He called it forth:
Ky-oat. Coyote.
The man had a hawk’s vision:
So far away, the feral form floated in the fenceline.
I mimicked his naming of nearly nothing.
Dropping his hand,
he named grainheads
as red as the sun-red
arm which assayed
their weight by the acre:
twin tea sin tree wait maze.
Twenty-century-weight
Maize. Milo. Sorghum.
Each a name for the same thing
for which I had no name.
He shucked a maizehead,
opened his hand, bleeding spoors
of red kernels, rolling in palmcreases
like a Crackerjack ball-in-a-maze:
Roll the ball from beginning to end.
In the maize’s beginning
our tractor and drill sowed
mouses and bunnies from the clods.
Hawks canceleered, censored the scenes
behind a flash of pinion and wing.
Cottontails, hares, vermin and vole
disseminated from the viscera.
Count three days
(index, middle, ring)
then fingercomb the
dirt kernel-tombs.
“Verily,” he said in seedred letters.
Tipped at his soiled index,
a maizeseed split by a tendril tail
like altricial kits spilt
from a doerabbit
harrowed by the plow.
Naming the crop split me
a thumb from a forefinger
a row from a row
and line upon line
I call out coyote.
Take a look at the chapter headings below to see the ground we cover.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Context of Fatherhood
04:20 The Role of Fathers and Family Dynamics
10:32 Exploring Poetry and Fatherhood
12:08 Analyzing 'Digging' by Seamus Heaney
30:56 Reflections on Legacy and Personal Identity
35:31 The Terroir of Life and Legacy
36:57 Embracing Heritage and Identity
38:57 The Power of Poetry and Connection
40:04 Analyzing 'Names of Crops' by Seth Wieck
44:03 Vision and the Role of Fathers
49:59 Language, Learning, and Legacy
57:43 The Intersection of Life and Death
01:01:50 The Mystery of Naming and Identity
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit colorofdust.substack.com
Thanks for giving us a read and listen! Feel free to subscribe if you haven’t done so already. No charge :)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit colorofdust.substack.com
View all episodes
By Jack Baumgartner, Seth Wieck, and Sam Kee
5
88 ratings
We talk about fatherhood and the artistic voice through the lens of two poems, one by Seamus Heaney (“Digging”), and the other by Seth Wieck (“Names of Crops”; see below). We compare the two poems and sprinkle in a little of our own stories as we go. We hope this will encourage you to consider the ‘soil’ from which you came and how it might nourish your own authentic artistic voice.
Here is Seamus Heaney reading “Digging”:
And here is “Names of Crops” by our very own Seth Wieck:
Names of Crops
For Christopher Timothy
At a mile, measured
along the muzzle plane of my father’s arm,
iron-sighted between forefinger and thumb,
a dog-speck loped across the nail of his index,
fully-formed, flea-sprung
from that pate of keratin.
He called it forth:
Ky-oat. Coyote.
The man had a hawk’s vision:
So far away, the feral form floated in the fenceline.
I mimicked his naming of nearly nothing.
Dropping his hand,
he named grainheads
as red as the sun-red
arm which assayed
their weight by the acre:
twin tea sin tree wait maze.
Twenty-century-weight
Maize. Milo. Sorghum.
Each a name for the same thing
for which I had no name.
He shucked a maizehead,
opened his hand, bleeding spoors
of red kernels, rolling in palmcreases
like a Crackerjack ball-in-a-maze:
Roll the ball from beginning to end.
In the maize’s beginning
our tractor and drill sowed
mouses and bunnies from the clods.
Hawks canceleered, censored the scenes
behind a flash of pinion and wing.
Cottontails, hares, vermin and vole
disseminated from the viscera.
Count three days
(index, middle, ring)
then fingercomb the
dirt kernel-tombs.
“Verily,” he said in seedred letters.
Tipped at his soiled index,
a maizeseed split by a tendril tail
like altricial kits spilt
from a doerabbit
harrowed by the plow.
Naming the crop split me
a thumb from a forefinger
a row from a row
and line upon line
I call out coyote.
Take a look at the chapter headings below to see the ground we cover.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Context of Fatherhood
04:20 The Role of Fathers and Family Dynamics
10:32 Exploring Poetry and Fatherhood
12:08 Analyzing 'Digging' by Seamus Heaney
30:56 Reflections on Legacy and Personal Identity
35:31 The Terroir of Life and Legacy
36:57 Embracing Heritage and Identity
38:57 The Power of Poetry and Connection
40:04 Analyzing 'Names of Crops' by Seth Wieck
44:03 Vision and the Role of Fathers
49:59 Language, Learning, and Legacy
57:43 The Intersection of Life and Death
01:01:50 The Mystery of Naming and Identity
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit colorofdust.substack.com
Thanks for giving us a read and listen! Feel free to subscribe if you haven’t done so already. No charge :)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit colorofdust.substack.com
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