Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney, MRIAwas an Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer, and the recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth13 April 1939
CityCastledawson, Northern Ireland
CountryIreland
Seamus Heaney quotes about
gains glory dies
I shall gain glory or die.
queens lunch once-upon-a-time
I've nothing against the Queen personally: I had lunch at the Palace once upon a time.
world reliability stood-up
To begin with, I wanted that truth to life to possess a concrete reliability, and rejoiced most when the poem seemed most direct, an upfront representation of the world it stood in for or stood up for or stood its ground against.
forgiveness sea forgiving
Hope for a great sea-change timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.
beam moors mist
In off the moors, down through the mist beams, god-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.
world news terror
But even so, none of the news of these world-spasms entered me as terror.
forgiveness revenge believe
So hope for a great sea-change On the far side of revenge. Believe that further shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracles And cures and healing wells.
cities names mind
When I first encountered the name of the city of Stockholm, I little thought that I would ever visit it, never mind end up being welcomed to it as a guest of the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Foundation.
fire political ireland-and-the-irish
Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit.
awards giving judging
Nowadays, what an award gives is a sense of solidarity with the poetry guild, as it were: sustenance coming from the assent of your peers on the judging panel.
scotland speech speak
My point is there's a hidden Scotland in anyone who speaks the Northern Ireland speech. It's a terrific complicating factor, not just in Northern Ireland, but Ireland generally.
father lines tides
The dotted line my father's ashplant made On Sandymount Strand Is something else the tide won't wash away.
desolation operations left-behind
It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir; that Tacitus was right and that peace is merely the desolation left behind after the decisive operations of merciless power.
expectations political groups
A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups.