Stitching Divided Countries: A Study in Selected Poems by Michael Longley

The quilt is a dominant motif in Longley's The weather in Japan, one which becomes a metaphor for his elegiac practice in the poems. The metaphoric resonance of the motif is expanded far beyond its earlier manifestations to accommodate the central preoccupations of the collection. The quilt is evoked directly and indirectly in the poems. Longley's The Weather in Japan concerns revolve around, legacy, crafts, nature, valediction, beauty, war and death. In a away, this collection is all about things coming apart and being stitching once again to form patterns. In fact, this is the principle behind making a patchwork craftily, literally and literary.