
Seamus Heaney, from “Squarings”
Seamus Heaney, from “Squarings” Seamus Heaney often said that, from his experience as a poet, one’s creative life followed three … Continue Reading Seamus Heaney, from “Squarings”
Seamus Heaney, from “Squarings” Seamus Heaney often said that, from his experience as a poet, one’s creative life followed three … Continue Reading Seamus Heaney, from “Squarings”
Seamus Heaney, from “Crossings” Seamus Heaney often said that, from his experience as a poet, one’s creative life followed three … Continue Reading Seamus Heaney, from “Crossings”
Seamus Heaney, from “Settings” Seamus Heaney often said that, from his experience as a poet, one’s creative life followed three … Continue Reading Seamus Heaney, from “Settings”
Seamus Heaney, from “Lightenings” Seamus Heaney often said that, from his experience as a poet, one’s creative life followed three … Continue Reading Seamus Heaney, from “Lightenings”
Seamus Heaney, “The Strand at Lough Beg” In Memory of Colum McCartney All round this little island, on the strand … Continue Reading Seamus Heaney, “The Strand at Lough Beg” (An Elegy from the Troubles)
Eavan Boland, “The Mother Tongue” The old pale ditch can still be seen less than half a mile from my … Continue Reading Eavan Boland, “The Mother Tongue”
From the end of Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, here is an immense mourning for a person and a civilization, … Continue Reading Seamus Heaney’s “Beowulf”
W. B. Yeats, “Meru” Civilisation is hooped together, broughtUnder a rule, under the semblance of peaceBy manifold illusion; but man’s … Continue Reading W. B. Yeats, “Meru”
Here are some of Seamus Heaney’s memories of reading, writing, and poetry, from earliest schooldays to university, all taken from … Continue Reading Heaney Comes to Poetry
Here’s Seamus Heaney talking about writing, from Dennis O’Driscoll’s book-length interview with him, Stepping Stones: On Inspiration On the week … Continue Reading Heaney on Writing
from “Clearances” When all the others were away at Mass I was all hers as we peeled potatoes. They broke … Continue Reading 5 Elegies by Seamus Heaney
One way to understand where poetry is now is to see where it was a hundred years ago. Every Saturday … Continue Reading 20th Century Poetry #7: W. B. Yeats
Here’s W. B. Yeats recalling his earliest experiences of poetry: ….This may have come from the stable-boy, for he was … Continue Reading Yeats Discovers Poetry
Here is W. B. Yeats, remembering some of his early experiences with the occult and supernatural. All taken from his … Continue Reading Yeats Comes to the Occult
The Making of an Irish Goddess Ceres went to hell with no sense of time. When she looked back all … Continue Reading “The Making of an Irish Goddess,” by Eavan Boland
Those Images What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There’s better exercise In the sunlight and … Continue Reading “The harlot and the child”: 2 Late Poems from W. B. Yeats
My poetry collection Bone Antler Stone—a panorama of ancient Europe from the painted caves of Lascaux to contact with Greece … Continue Reading On “Bone Antler Stone”: Ancient Europe, the Narrow Book & Finding Poetry Again
A young Seamus Heaney recalls a blacksmith from his boyhood, while a much older Seamus Heaney illustrates the sometimes excessive … Continue Reading “All I know is a door into the dark”: 2 Poems by Seamus Heaney
Here are some bits from Kafka’s Diaries, trying & failing to harmonize his writing life with his family and work … Continue Reading The Poet Speaks #14: Kafka Tries Again & Again
Even though I’ve never read a word of his poetry, John Berryman has been haunting me lately. Two friends who … Continue Reading The Poet Speaks #13: Richard Wilbur & John Berryman: “The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him”
If the Negro, or any other writer, is going to do what is expected of him, he’s lost the battle … Continue Reading The Poet Speaks #12: Ralph Ellison, Anthony Burgess, James Dickey
George Eliot, on empathy: The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension … Continue Reading The Poet Speaks #11: George Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Philip Levine, Stephen King, Seamus Heaney: “struggling erring human creatures”
On the supposed “difficulty” of his poetry: We are difficult. Human beings are difficult. We’re difficult to ourselves, we’re difficult … Continue Reading The Poet Speaks #9: Geoffrey Hill, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, James Merrill, Ursula K. Le Guin: “We are difficult”
As even “nerd culture” and all the rest just becomes another snobby fad and pop culture corner to hide in, … Continue Reading The Poet Speaks #8: Patti Smith, Toni Morrison, T. S. Eliot, Hart Crane: “I shall make every sacrifice toward that end”
One of the many preludes to the great Irish epic, The Táin: What caused the two pig-keepers to quarrel? It … Continue Reading The Great Myths #13: The Two Men Who Became Bulls (Irish)
(photo from the LG/WBY Heritage Trail) In the single-volume Autobiographies of W. B. Yeats, which collects all of Yeats’s autobiographical … Continue Reading Yeats & Lady Gregory