Seamus Heaney's "Whatever you say, say nothing" consists of four parts. The poem is roughly free verse with an irregular rime scheme.
The title, “Whatever you say, say nothing,” comes from secretive activity of Northern Ireland’s rebel paramilitary, who warned members with this demand. Its purpose was to warn members to be careful what they say. If they speak to “civilians” at all they should make their talk so small that it would reveal nothing about their activity.
Part I: “I'm writing just after an encounter”
In Part I, the speaker reports that he is being hassled by reporters: “With an English journalist in search of 'views / On the Irish thing'.” And “media-men and stringers sniff and point, / Where zoom lenses, recorders and coiled leads / Litter the hotels.”
He caterwauls for a few lines, describing the chaos of the political situation; then he qualities his own stance as “I incline as much to rosary beads / As to the jottings and analyses,” and “I live here, I live here too, I sing, / Expertly civil tongued with civil neighbours.”
The speaker portrays the situation as fractious and obstreperous: “Sucking the fake taste, the stony flavours / Of those sanctioned, old, elaborate retorts: / 'Oh, it's disgraceful, surely, I agree,' / 'Where's it going to end?' 'It's getting worse.' “
He even hears his neighbors complain such keening cries as “’They're murderers.’ 'Internment, understandably. . / The 'voice of sanity' is getting hoarse.’” This speaker has a mildly amused but always philosophical view of the chaotic environment, kind of like Yeats without the vision.
Part II: “Men die at hand. In blasted street and home”
The speaker has the same complaints the Irish have had for centuries, living in a war zone: “Men die at hand. In blasted street and home / The gelignite's a common sound effect.” The speaker has become enamored with term “gelignite,” using it liberally throughout his reportage.
The speaker dramatizes the socialistic nature of the bunch and manages to fling off a reconstituted cliché “Long sucking the hind tit / Cold as a witch's and as hard to swallow / Still leaves us fork-tongued on the border bit.” His colorful portrayals push the poem forward, even if the politics gives it a decided lag: “The liberal papist note sounds hollow / When amplified and mixed in with the bangs / That shake all hearts and windows day and night.”
Of course, the reader is aware that such depends on which side one is shouting for. The speaker philosophizes, “I believe any of us / Could draw the line through bigotry and sham / Given the right line, aere perennius.” Enough time and anything could be accomplished, the speaker avers.
Part III: “'Religion's never mentioned here,' of course”
In Part III, the poem’s title appears: Where to be saved you only must save face / And whatever you say, you say nothing.” Following this line is a colorful rejoinder to the command, ”Smoke-signals are loud-mouthed compared with us.” They have learned splendidly to shrink their talk to less than zero.
Part IV: “This morning from a dewy motorway”
In the last part, the speaker describes in what’s-new fashion: “I saw the new camp for the internees: / A bomb had left a crater of fresh clay / In the roadside, and over in the trees.” And he sums up his little tirade with a bumptious yet declarative, “Is there a life before death? / / Competence with pain, / Coherent miseries, a bit and sup, / We hug our little destiny again.”
