24 March 2011

Seamus Heaney on my favourite pen maker

I found this poem on the Fountain Pen Network (I really do collect pens but not I'm not a serious collector).

The Conway Stewart


"Medium," 14-carat nib,
Three gold bands in the clip-on screw-top,
In the mottled barrel a spatulate, thin

Pump-action lever
The shopkeeper
Demonstrated,

The nib uncapped,
Treating it to its first deep snorkel
In a newly opened ink-bottle,

Guttery, snottery,
Letting it rest then at an angle
To ingest,

Giving us time
To look together and away
From our parting, due that evening,

To my longhand
"Dear"
To them, next day.

The poem appeared in his 2010 collection Human Chain.

I have never seen a poem about  fountain pen before, let alone one about a Conway Stewart pen.Contributors to the Fountain Pen Network are of the opinion that the pen in question was a model 58...

5 comments:

nursemyra said...

I like "guttery, snottery"

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

What a lovely, unusual poem. Ah, for fountain pens and elegance!

jams o donnell said...

It;s a good one eh?

I love fountain pens. My handwriting may be awful but there's nothing like wrting with a nib.

Anonymous said...

A pen poem for these modern times:

I use a Biro
to sign my giro
I use a Bic
to buy on tick

(It's nice to be back, by the way, having just been let out of a filthy cupboard where some Latin-named bastard had locked me in while he rifled through my belongings and nicked all my ideas)

jams o donnell said...

Welcome back Andrew. I hope you can get revenge on the beast that locked you in that cupboard!