Poor Women in a City Church A study of inner city devotions is inspired by the sight of Catholic women in an unheated Belfast church. The poem creates a canvas that recalls classical paintings of groups of worshippers in like circumstances. Heaney concentrates, first, on light effects: small wax candles melt to light, casting varying shadows as they flicker in marble or creating pinpoints of light on the curvature of shiny, metal surfaces: bright/ Asterisks. The eye-camera moves to an ‘chapel’ devoted to Mother Mary, a revered Catholic figure beloved of women in particular; it comes to rest before the [...]