Love-Knot of Straw | A Harvest Bow Workshop
Photo credit: Vin Hanely
“A harvest bow is a little piece of wheat that is plaited and turned into a bow and my father simply made it without thinking every year.”
Seamus Heaney kept one of these harvest bows his father made on his dresser in his home in Wicklow. It would inspire the beautiful poem of family and remembrance, ‘The Harvest Bow,’ where Heaney evokes memories of his childhood, recalling how his father’s ‘mellowed silence’ as he weaved the bright straw, is captured forever in the ‘throwaway love-knot of straw.’
Made during harvest season out of wheat stalks, harvest bows were weaved into intricate and beautiful designs to be hung in the house as a blessing or offered as tokens of affection. Join us at Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again on Saturday 18th October at 2pm for a relaxing afternoon and make your own harvest bow.
If our team can be of any assistance, please contact us at heaneyexhibition@nli.ie
