Don McKay — Neanderthal Dig

Mon Jan 20 2025

Don McKay’s poem “Neanderthal Dig” begins with the discovery of an ancient, child-sized skeleton placed on the wing of a swan and then takes flight, showing us how love and death are riddled with paradoxes — mixing the earthbound and the sacred, the personal and the universal, the time-stamped and the never ending.

Summary

Poetry Unbound: Episode Summary – Don McKay’s “Neanderthal Dig”

Podcast Information:

Title: Poetry Unbound
Host: Pádraig Ó Tuama
Producer: On Being Studios
Episode: Don McKay — Neanderthal Dig
Release Date: January 20, 2025

Introduction

In this evocative episode of Poetry Unbound, hosted by Pádraig Ó Tuama, listeners are invited to delve into Don McKay’s poignant poem “Neanderthal Dig.” Pádraig sets the stage by blending personal reflections with literary analysis, offering a profound exploration of the poem’s themes and significance.

Exploring “Neanderthal Dig”

Overview of the Poem: At [00:00], Pádraig introduces “Neanderthal Dig,” a poem by Canadian poet Don McKay, which meticulously unearths an archaeological discovery purportedly dating back 6,000 to 7,000 years in modern-day Denmark. The poem narrates the finding of a mother and child buried together, adorned in ceremonial attire, with the child placed delicately on a swan’s wing.

Historical Context: Pádraig explains that while McKay wasn't present at the actual dig, the poem vividly captures the essence of such an archaeological exploration. He remarks, "Neanderthals are our very early cousins, and we are all made up of our early ancestors" ([02:45]).

Thematic Deep Dive

1. The Passage of Time and Ancestral Connections: Pádraig emphasizes the poem’s intricate relationship with time, stating, "Every poem is about time, but this one is very much about time" ([05:10]). He reflects on the transient nature of human perception, likening contemporary views on technological advancement to how future generations might perceive us in 200 years.

2. Death Rituals and Grief: Central to the poem is the exploration of death rituals. Pádraig shares a personal anecdote about a friend who, in the face of his newborn son's death, personally laid the coffin into the grave, highlighting the profound "body language of tenderness" ([10:30]). This act mirrors the ancient rituals depicted in McKay’s poem, underscoring the universal human response to loss across millennia.

3. Language and Physicality: The phrase "some wing of language" from the poem intrigues Pádraig, who interprets it as a metaphor for the physicality of language. He posits that "language is just another word for tongue," suggesting that our earliest forms of communication were deeply rooted in body language ([12:15]).

4. Human Limitations and Reflection: Pádraig critiques how the poem addresses human limitations in the face of uncontrollable events, such as grief. He points out McKay’s subtle defiance against labeling contemporary society as inherently inferior, instead highlighting our collective "limitation when faced with what we cannot control" ([09:50]).

Poetic Structure and Style

Hymn-like Quality: Analyzing the poem’s structure, Pádraig notes its bifurcated sections, sometimes numbered, culminating in a hymn-like benediction: "Wherever you've gone, may your spirit wander wild as a swan in the vale of Neander" ([13:00]). He appreciates the musicality in the poem’s final lines, where the repetition and elemental rhyming create a soothing, almost lullaby-esque effect.

Elemental Rhyming and Sound: Pádraig observes the intentional use of rhymes and rhythm in the poem’s closing lines: "wreath, death, language, earth, gone, wander, swan, Neander" ([13:45]). This choice not only enhances the poem’s aesthetic appeal but also reinforces its thematic depth.

Personal Reflections and Stories

Throughout the episode, Pádraig intertwines his personal experiences with literary analysis, enriching the discussion with authentic emotion. He recalls his childhood reflections on maturity and self-awareness, drawing parallels to the poem’s contemplation of ancestral wisdom and human evolution ([04:30]).

Don McKay: The Poet Behind the Poem

Background and Inspirations: Pádraig shares insights from his interview with Don McKay, who won the Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024. McKay describes his profound "conversions to birds and geology," which deeply influence his poetic work ([11:20]).

Connection to Nature and Earth: McKay’s fascination with birds is mirrored in the poem’s imagery of the swan, symbolizing freedom and the ethereal nature of the soul. His second conversion, geology, is reflected in the poem’s archaeological themes, emphasizing our intrinsic bond with the earth and the enduring legacy of our ancestors ([11:50]).

Conclusion: Insights and Takeaways

In wrapping up the exploration of “Neanderthal Dig,” Pádraig underscores the poem’s ability to bridge the ancient and the contemporary, weaving a narrative that is both timeless and profoundly human. He muses on the sacredness of burial sites and the respect afforded to the departed, regardless of the era, highlighting how "digging up the past changes our contemporary understanding about what matters and how to show respect" ([14:00]).

The episode serves as a testament to Don McKay’s literary prowess, showcasing his ability to intertwine personal emotion with universal themes, all while honoring our shared human heritage.

Closing Remarks

While the episode primarily focuses on the literary analysis of "Neanderthal Dig," it also celebrates the enduring power of poetry to connect us across time and space. Pádraig invites listeners to further engage with McKay’s work and the broader conversations within the poetry community through the accompanying book and Substack newsletter.

For more insights and discussions, listeners are encouraged to visit poetryunbound.org and subscribe to the Poetry Unbound Substack newsletter.

Notable Quotes:

"Every poem is about time, but this one is very much about time." – Pádraig Ó Tuama ([05:10])
"Language is just another word for tongue." – Pádraig Ó Tuama ([12:15])
"Wherever you've gone, may your spirit wander wild as a swan in the vale of Neander." – Don McKay, Neanderthal Dig ([13:00])

This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and reflections presented in the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for both listeners and newcomers alike.

Transcript

Padre Gautuma (0:00)

Hi friends. I've got some news for you. I've got two books coming out in early 2025. 44 poems on being with each Other is a poetry unbound collection with 44 poems and 44 essays. There's poems from Jericho Brown and Mary Oliver and Lucille Clifton in there. And I have a collection of my own poems coming out too. It's called Kitchen Hymns. You can pre order these wherever you get your books. Online bookshops or even better your local bookshop. There's more info@poetryunbound.org thanks friends. My name is Padre Gautuma and I'm very glad to be from a place that has particular death rituals. And the poem we're going to look at today makes reference to ancient death rituals. This last summer I was doing some teaching and there was a guy in the class from the Romansh speaking part of eastern Switzerland. He was a Protestant minister and he told me that in one of the parishes where he works, when somebody has died, it isn't the minister that welcomes the family into the church for the funeral service, it's the family who had been bereaved before that. I thought it was a beautiful ritual. Death rituals say so much to us about the way we want to live. And primarily death rituals are to help the living keep living. I love that it's a note of defiance and tenderness and care and love that we show to each other in the midst of difficult times. Neanderthal dig by Don MacKay when we dug up the grave, we found a child's bones laid on a great swan's wing. They had never been, we thought, the sharpest flints in the cave, with thick skulls evolving toward NFL helmets. We'd applied their name from Neander Vale, site of the first remains we found, to racists, sexists and dull bureaucrats. Now we stood abashed trespassers on grief, thoroughly sapiens, with artful implements and wit. What would it be like to be so stricken with few words to call on heaven, hell, hope, grief? And what sharp words might we, the clever cousins, muster for the child who one day watched a mute swan, wingspan 5ft, lift from the river in two white swipes of Paleolithic air? What manner of wreath might honour this death? Some wing of language entering earth, wherever you've gone, may your spirit wander wild as a swan in the vale of Neander. John Mackay titles this poem Neanderthal Dig, which gives us an indication at the start of some kind of archaeological exploration. Neanderthals are our very early cousins, and we are all made up of our early ancestors. And there was a dig discovered, this is in modern day Denmark, that discovered who it is imagined to be. A mother and a child buried alongside each other, each dressed up. It seems they're guessing from small fragments that remain in some kind of ceremonial clothing. And the child was laid on the wing of a swan. Obviously, Don Mackay wasn't at this dig, but he writes as if he was. And I've read a couple of different estimations that this particular pair of human beings, it's estimated that that was sometime around 7,000 to 6,000 years ago. That kind of span of time. I know I harp on fairly often about the fact that every poem is about time, but I think they are. And deliberately, this one is very much about time. I remember when I was eight, deciding, okay, I have sense now. And I looked with absolute disdain upon myself up until that age. I thought, oh, I was only seven when I said that I had no sense. And then when I was nine, I decided, no, no, no, I've got sense now. And I was a fool to think I had sense when I was 8. And that's just inside one small, complicated boy's brain. The there's all kinds of ways in which we refer to the past and seem to imply that because it was in the past that they were more ignorant. And I think probably every age feels sophisticated and is at that stage the most sophisticated that human technology's been. So, of course, in 200 years time, people are going to speak about us and kind of find it funny, perhaps, that we thought that we were technologically advanced. They had never been, we thought, the sharpest flints in the cave. And then he goes on to talk about the helmets and racists and sexists and bureaucrats. Deliberately insulting. And I find it funny because he's kind of highlighting how limited it is to think that we today can apply that to someone else without applying it to ourselves. And that's exactly what he does do. To speak, not necessarily by calling us all ignorant, but by saying we're each faced with the limitation of ourselves when we're faced with what we cannot control. The death of someone else, the death of a child, what to do in the face of terrible grief. A swan's wing, perhaps. Could there be a more beautiful thing to do? I love the poetry of the lion. Some wing of language, because even in the elevated choice of syntax here, he's also pointing beyond language, or pointing perhaps to the heart of it. Language is just another word for tongue. And speaking about a wing of language is speaking about the physicality of it, that all language is body language. And that way before we had what we think is our own contemporary cleverness, we had bodies. And so body language is much, much older than what we might think of as speech. Friends of mine, their son died and he was only a day or two old. And when his body was being laid into the grave, the small coffin was too light to be laid down easily. So my friend jumped into the grave himself and took the coffin in his hands and laid it down at the bottom of the grave. And it's what everybody talked about afterwards. Just the fact that even there he was parenting. And it was the body language of this, the tenderness with which he laid it down, the fact that he was the last one, not a rope, not something being lowered down by non physical means, but it was him who laid his son to rest in the great earth. And this, I think, speaks to us about how contemporary these people were, however many thousands of years ago it was. Who laid a child to sleep in the earth on the wing of a swan? I encountered Don Mackay when I interviewed him over the summer. He won the Griffin Poetry Prize Life achievement award in 2024. He's a Canadian poet. He said once that he has had two great conversions in his life. The first conversion is to birds and the second conversion is to geology. And I feel like this poem highlights both. When he's saying that somebody perhaps watched a mute swan lift from the river in two white swipes of Paleolithic air, he's speaking about the sense of wonder that people from contemporary times to ancient, ancient times have had fascination and attention given to watching a bird in flight, and then the veil of Neander and the fact that people are digging and going into the earth. This speaks to his second great conversion toward geology, toward the rock upon which we stand, toward the place from which our food grows, toward the ways within which we make home and habitation, but also the ways within which our bones return to the earth, and that we ourselves become part of what it is that others stand on as years and eons go by. The way that Don Mackay has laid this poem out, it's in two sections and actually they're numbered. Sometimes people do and sometimes people don't. Read the numbers out. The second part starts with the lines, what manner of wreath might honour this death? And it's at this point, I think, that the poem rises to something like a hymn, something like a lullaby. I like sometimes to look at the last word of each successive line in a poem, or just within One part of a poem, perhaps, to see is there some kind of code, some kind of music created by the final word in successive lines. And these last eight lines, they finish with the words wreath, death, language, earth, gone, wander, swan, Neander. You can hear that there is some kind of elemental rhyming and some kind of elemental music being created in the. And it finishes with a benediction. Wherever you've gone, may your spirit wander wild as a swan on the vale of Neanderthal. This hope for something that could rise above the earth wild as a swan, while also being in the earth in the vale of Neander. There's an interesting way within which we understand where it is that a person's remains are laid to be sacred ground, and that whatever one's affiliation with religion or not, that treating the remains of somebody is something of great respect. And even when it comes to Neanderthal. When we dug up the grave, we found a child's bones. And what it is that they discovered changed what it is they thought about grief rituals from whomever it was that had made this burial. And it shows something about what happens when we start to dig. We don't only dig up the past, we. We also dig up something of our contemporary understanding about what matters, about how to show respect about what is sacred. And it changes the way you relate to land as well, when you realize that somebody would have chosen this particular part of land to have it as a place of burial. Neanderthal dig by Don MacKay when we dug up the grave we found a child's bones laid on a great swan's wing. They had never been, we thought, the sharpest flints in the cave with thick skulls evolving toward NFL helmets. We'd applied their name from Neanderthale sight of the first remains we found two racists, sexists and dull bureaucrats. Now we stood abashed trespassers on grief, thoroughly sapiens with artful implements and wit. What would it be like to be so stricken with few words to call on heaven, hell, hope, grief? And what sharp words might we, the clever cousins, muster for the child who one day watched a mute swan, wingspan 5ft, lift from the river in two white swipes of Paleolithic air? What manner of wreath might honour this death? Some wing of language entering earth, wherever you've gone, may your spirit wander wild as a swan in the vale of Neander.