Mid-Term Break

Heaney’s poetry is characterized by a preference for regular forms and metrical patterns. “Mid-Term Break” is composed of six unrhymed tercets (three-line stanzas) closing with a single line. Many of the lines employ iambic pentameter, the most traditional of English poetic meters, used by Shakespeare, Milton, and other canonical poets. The classical iambic pattern of ten alternating unstressed and stressed syllables is established in the first line, “I sat all morning in the college sick bay,” though as early as Line 2 Heaney departs from it by placing stress on the first syllable: “Counting” to create a jarring effect. At other points in the poem, such as Lines 6 and 15, Heaney uses longer lines of eleven syllables, mimicking the cruel reality of experience by pushing against the strictness of the form. Line 18 is a syllable shorter, but the full stop creates a pause that is equal to a syllable in weight. This suggests the silent contemplation by the brother’s corpse and the notion of reticence or absence of words at the heart of the poem’s approach to grief. This control over form mirrors the speaker’s attempt to control or make sense of difficult emotions. It also gives the poem a perfectly crafted feel, not unlike the coffin in which the boy is placed.