Seamus Heaney Poems Seamus Heaney

1957–1969

My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner's bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging. The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I've no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I'll dig with it.

from "Digging", Death of a Naturalist (1966)

Heaney studied English Language and Literature at Queen's University Belfast starting in 1957. While there, he found a copy of Ted Hughes's Lupercal, which spurred him to write poetry. "Suddenly, the matter of contemporary poetry was the material of my own life," he said.[3] He graduated in 1961 with a First Class Honours degree.[19]

Heaney studied for a teacher certification at St Joseph's Teacher Training College in Belfast (now merged with St Mary's, University College), and began teaching at St Thomas' Secondary Intermediate School in Ballymurphy, Belfast.[20] The headmaster of this school was the writer Michael McLaverty from County Monaghan, who introduced Heaney to the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh.[21][22] With McLaverty's mentorship, Heaney first started to publish poetry in 1962. Sophia Hillan describes how McLaverty was like a foster father to the younger Belfast poet.[23] In the introduction to McLaverty's Collected Works, Heaney summarised the poet's contribution and influence: "His voice was modestly pitched, he never sought the limelight, yet for all that, his place in our literature is secure."[24] Heaney's poem "Fosterage", in the sequence "Singing School", from North (1975), is dedicated to him.[25]

In 1963 Heaney began lecturing at St Joseph's, and joined the Belfast Group, a poets' workshop organized by Philip Hobsbaum, then an English lecturer at Queen's University. Through this, Heaney met other Belfast poets, including Derek Mahon and Michael Longley.[19]

Heaney met Marie Devlin, a native of Ardboe, County Tyrone, while at St Joseph's in 1962; they married in August 1965[15][19] and would go on to have three children.[1][2] A school teacher and writer, Devlin published Over Nine Waves (1994), a collection of traditional Irish myths and legends. Heaney's first book, Eleven Poems, was published in November 1965 for the Queen's University Festival.[26] In 1966 their first son, Michael, was born. He earned a living at the time by writing for The Irish Times, often on the subject of radio.[27] A second son, Christopher, was born in 1968.

Heaney initially sought publication with Dolmen Press in Dublin for his first volume of work. While waiting to hear back, he was signed with Faber and Faber and published Death of a Naturalist in 1966, and Faber remained his publisher for the rest of his life. This collection was met with much critical acclaim and won several awards, including the Gregory Award for Young Writers and the Geoffrey Faber Prize.[22] The same year, he was appointed as a lecturer in Modern English Literature at Queen's University Belfast. In 1968, Heaney and Michael Longley undertook a reading tour called Room to Rhyme, which increased awareness of the poet's work. The following year, he published his second major volume, Door into the Dark.[28]

1970–1984

Heaney taught as a visiting professor in English at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1970–1971 academic year.[29] In 1972, he left his lectureship at Belfast, moved to Wicklow in the Republic of Ireland, and began writing on a full-time basis. That year, he published his third collection, Wintering Out. In 1975, Heaney's next volume, North, was published.[30] A pamphlet of prose poems entitled Stations was published the same year.[31]

In 1976 Heaney was appointed Head of English at Carysfort College in Dublin and moved with his family to the suburb of Sandymount. His next collection, Field Work, was published in 1979. Selected Poems 1965-1975 and Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968–1978 were published in 1980. When Aosdána, the national Irish Arts Council, was established in 1981, Heaney was among those elected into its first group. (He was subsequently elected a Saoi, one of its five elders and its highest honour, in 1997).[32]

Also in 1981, Heaney travelled to the United States as a visiting professor at Harvard, where he was affiliated with Adams House. He was awarded two honorary doctorates, from Queen's University and from Fordham University in New York City (1982). At the Fordham commencement ceremony on 23 May 1982, Heaney delivered his address as a 46-stanza poem entitled "Verses for a Fordham Commencement."[33]

Born and educated in Northern Ireland, Heaney stressed that he was Irish and not British.[34] Following the success of the Field Day Theatre Company's production of Brian Friel's Translations, the founders Brian Friel and Stephen Rea decided to make the company a permanent group. Heaney joined the company's expanded Board of Directors in 1981.[35] In autumn 1984, his mother, Margaret, died.[10][36]

1985–1999

Heaney became a tenured faculty member at Harvard, as the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory (formerly visiting professor) 1985–1997, and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Poet in Residence at Harvard 1998–2006.[37] In 1986, Heaney received a Litt.D. from Bates College. His father, Patrick, died in October the same year.[10] The loss of both parents within two years affected Heaney deeply, and he expressed his grief in poems.[10] In 1988, a collection of his critical essays, The Government of the Tongue, was published.

In 1985 Heaney wrote the poem "From the Republic of Conscience" at the request of Amnesty International Ireland. He wanted to "celebrate United Nations Day and the work of Amnesty".[38] The poem inspired the title of Amnesty International's highest honour, the Ambassador of Conscience Award.[39]

In 1988 Heaney donated his lecture notes to the Rare Book Library of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, after giving the notable Ellmann Lectures there.[40]

In 1989 Heaney was elected Oxford Professor of Poetry, which he held for a five-year term to 1994. The chair does not require residence in Oxford. Throughout this period, he was dividing his time between Ireland and the United States. He also continued to give public readings. So well attended and keenly anticipated were these events that those who queued for tickets with such enthusiasm were sometimes dubbed "Heaneyboppers", suggesting an almost teenybopper fan base.[41]

In 1990 The Cure at Troy, a play based on Sophocles's Philoctetes,[42] was published. The next year, he published another volume of poetry, Seeing Things (1991). Heaney was named an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society, Trinity College Dublin, and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1991).[43]

In 1993 Heaney guest-edited The Mays Anthology, a collection of new writing from students at the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. That same year, he was awarded the Dickinson College Arts Award and returned to the Pennsylvania college to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree. He was scheduled to return to Dickinson again to receive the Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Award—for a major literary figure—at the time of his death in 2013. Irish poet Paul Muldoon was named recipient of the award that year, partly in recognition of the close connection between the two poets.

Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995 for "works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past".[44] He was on holiday in Greece with his wife when the news broke. Neither journalists nor his own children could reach him until he arrived at Dublin Airport two days later, although an Irish television camera traced him to Kalamata. Asked how he felt to have his name added to the Irish Nobel pantheon of W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw and Samuel Beckett, Heaney responded: "It's like being a little foothill at the bottom of a mountain range. You hope you just live up to it. It's extraordinary."[45] He and his wife Marie were immediately taken from the airport to Áras an Uachtaráin for champagne with President Mary Robinson.[45] He would refer to the prize discreetly as "the N thing" in personal exchanges with others.[46]

Heaney's 1996 collection The Spirit Level won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award; he repeated the success in 1999 with Beowulf: A New Verse Translation.[47]

Heaney was elected a Member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1996 and was admitted in 1997.[48] In the same year, Heaney was elected Saoi of Aosdána.[49] In 1998, Heaney was elected Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Dublin.[50]

2000s

In 2000 Heaney was awarded an honorary doctorate and delivered the commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania.[51] In 2002, Heaney was awarded an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University and delivered a public lecture on "The Guttural Muse".[52]

In 2003 the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry was opened at Queen's University Belfast. It houses the Heaney Media Archive, a record of Heaney's entire oeuvre, along with a full catalogue of his radio and television presentations.[53] That same year, Heaney decided to lodge a substantial portion of his literary archive at Emory University as a memorial to the work of William M. Chace, the university's recently retired president.[54][55] The Emory papers represented the largest repository of Heaney's work (1964–2003). He donated these to help build their large existing archive of material from Irish writers including Yeats, Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson, Michael Longley and other members of the Belfast Group.[56]

In 2003, when asked if there was any figure in popular culture who aroused interest in poetry and lyrics, Heaney praised American rap artist Eminem from Detroit, saying, "He has created a sense of what is possible. He has sent a voltage around a generation. He has done this not just through his subversive attitude but also his verbal energy."[57][58] Heaney wrote the poem "Beacons at Bealtaine" to mark the 2004 EU Enlargement. He read the poem at a ceremony for the 25 leaders of the enlarged European Union, arranged by the Irish EU presidency.

In August 2006 Heaney had a stroke. Although he recovered and joked, "Blessed are the pacemakers" when fitted with a heart monitor,[59] he cancelled all public engagements for several months.[60] He was in County Donegal at the time of the 75th birthday of Anne Friel, wife of playwright Brian Friel.[15][61] He read the works of Henning Mankell, Donna Leon and Robert Harris while in hospital. Among his visitors was former President Bill Clinton.[15][62]

Heaney's District and Circle won the 2006 T. S. Eliot Prize.[63] In 2008, he became artist of honour in Østermarie, Denmark, and Seamus Heaney Stræde (street) was named after him. In 2009, Heaney was presented with an Honorary-Life Membership award from the University College Dublin (UCD) Law Society, in recognition of his remarkable role as a literary figure.[64]

Faber and Faber published Dennis O'Driscoll's book Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney in 2008; this has been described as the nearest thing to an autobiography of Heaney.[65] In 2009, Heaney was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. He recorded a spoken word album, over 12 hours long, of himself reading his poetry collections to commemorate his 70th birthday, which occurred on 13 April 2009.[66][67][68]

2010s

He spoke at the West Belfast Festival in July 2010 in celebration of his mentor, the poet and novelist Michael McLaverty, who had helped Heaney to first publish his poetry.[69]

In September 2010 Faber published Human Chain, Heaney's twelfth collection. Human Chain was awarded the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection, one of the major poetry prizes Heaney had never previously won, despite having been twice shortlisted.[70][71] The book, published 44 years after the poet's first, was inspired in part by Heaney's stroke in 2006, which left him "babyish" and "on the brink". Poet and Forward judge Ruth Padel described the work as "a collection of painful, honest and delicately weighted poems ... a wonderful and humane achievement."[70] Writer Colm Tóibín described Human Chain as "his best single volume for many years, and one that contains some of the best poems he has written... is a book of shades and memories, of things whispered, of journeys into the underworld, of elegies and translations, of echoes and silences."[72] In October 2010, the collection was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.

Heaney was named one of "Britain's top 300 intellectuals" by The Observer in 2011, though the newspaper later published a correction acknowledging that "several individuals who would not claim to be British" had been featured, of which Heaney was one.[73] That same year, he contributed translations of Old Irish marginalia for Songs of the Scribe, an album by Traditional Singer in Residence of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin.[74]

In December 2011 Heaney donated his personal literary notes to the National Library of Ireland.[75] Even though he admitted he would likely have earned a fortune by auctioning them, Heaney personally packed up the boxes of notes and drafts and, accompanied by his son Michael, delivered them to the National Library.[76]

In June 2012 Heaney accepted the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry's Lifetime Recognition Award and gave a speech in honour of the award.[77]

Heaney was compiling a collection of his work in anticipation of Selected Poems 1988–2013 at the time of his death. The selection includes poems and writings from Seeing Things, The Spirit Level, the translation of Beowulf, Electric Light, District and Circle, and Human Chain (fall 2014).

In February 2014 Emory University premiered Seamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens, the first major exhibition to celebrate the life and work of Seamus Heaney since his death. [78] The exhibit holds a display of the surface of Heaney's personal writing desk that he used in the 1980s as well as old photographs and personal correspondence with other writers.[79] Heaney died in August 2013 during the exhibition's curatorial process. Though the exhibit's original vision to celebrate Heaney's life and work remains at the forefront, there is a small section commemorating his death and its influence.[80]

In September 2015 it was announced that Heaney's family would posthumously publish his translation of Book VI of The Aeneid in 2016.[81]