Seamus Heaney – Death of a Naturalist


quotes

Seamus Heany, Irish Poet of Soil and Strife —Acclaimed Irish Poet dies at 74.

“His last few words in a text message minutes before he passed away in his favourite Latin were ‘noli timere’ (‘don’t be afraid’),” he said.
Over the weekend, tributes continued to pour in from across the world to Mr Heaney, who has been hailed as the greatest poet Ireland has produced since William Butler Yeats.
Writer Colm Tóibín said Mr Heaney was not merely a central figure in the literary life of Ireland, but in its emotional life, in its dream life and in its real life. (via)

  • Paris Review


  • Czeslaw Milosz and Seamus Heaney


  • (repost) Making Sense of Life.

    Poetry Foundation

    Heaney was especially moved by artists who created poetry out of their local and native backgrounds—authors such as Ted Hughes, Patrick Kavanagh, and Robert Frost. Recalling his time in Belfast, Heaney once noted: “I learned that my local County Derry [childhood] experience, which I had considered archaic and irrelevant to ‘the modern world’ was to be trusted. They taught me that trust and helped me to articulate it.” (Poetry Foundation)