Seamus Justin Heaney, MRIA was an Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer from Northern Ireland. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Born near Castledawson and Toomebridge, Northern Ireland, the family moved to nearby Bellaghy when he was a boy. Heaney became a lecturer at St. Joseph's College in Belfast in the early 1960s, after attending Queen's University and began to publish poetry. He lived in Sandymount, Dublin from 1976 until his death. He also lived part-time in the United States from 1981 to 2006. Heaney was recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry during his lifetime.
Heaney was a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997, and its Poet in Residence from 1988 to 2006. From 1989 to 1994, he was also the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1996, was made a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Other awards that he received include the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize , the E. M. Forster Award , the PEN Translation Prize , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , the T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread Prizes . In 2011, he was awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize and in 2012, a Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust. His literary papers are held by the National Library of Ireland.
American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age". Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world." One of his best known works is Death of a Naturalist, published in 1966.
His body is buried at the Cemetery of St. Mary's Church, Bellaghy, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The headstone bears the epitaph "Walk on air against your better judgement", from one of his poems, The Gravel Walks.
“Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.”
Seamus Heaney The Cure at Troy
"Doubletake", from The Cure at Troy (1990)
Poetry Quotes, The Cure at Troy
Context: History says don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.
“If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.”
Source: Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney
“God is a foreman with certain definite views
Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure.”
Seamus Heaney book Death of a Naturalist
"Docker", line 10, from Death of a Naturalist.
Poetry Quotes, Death of a Naturalist
“Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.”
Seamus Heaney The Cure at Troy
"Doubletake" from The Cure at Troy (1990) - The Cure at Troy http://www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Cure_at_Troy.html excerpts <br class="br">Poetry Quotes, The Cure at Troy <br class="br">Context: Human beings suffer,<br>they torture one another,<br>they get hurt and get hard.<br>No poem or play or song<br>can fully right a wrong<br>inflicted or endured.
“Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.”
Seamus Heaney The Cure at Troy
"Doubletake", from The Cure at Troy (1990)
Poetry Quotes, The Cure at Troy
Context: Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.
Seamus Heaney The Cure at Troy
"Doubletake", from The Cure at Troy (1990)
Poetry Quotes, The Cure at Troy
Context: History says don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.
“Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.”
Source: Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996
“I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.”
Seamus Heaney book Death of a Naturalist
"Personal Helicon", line 19, from Eleven Poems (1965).
Other Quotes
Source: Death of a Naturalist
Seamus Heaney book Death of a Naturalist
"Digging", line 25, from Death of a Naturalist (1966).
Poetry Quotes, Death of a Naturalist
"Whatever You Say, Say Nothing", line 57, from North (1975).
Other Quotes
An Open Letter (1983), p. 9.
Objecting to his inclusion in The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry.
Other Quotes
From Nobel Prize for Literature speech 1995
Other Quotes
'Stepping Stones' interviews with Seamus Heaney' by Dennis O'Driscoll Faber and Faber 2009
Other Quotes
“Don't be afraid.”
Noli timere.
Last words; a text to his wife. Daily Telegraph report. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/10281153/Seamus-Heaney-told-wife-dont-be-afraid-minutes-before-death.html <br class="br">Other Quotes
