Seamus Heaney’s poetry bears witness to Ireland’s complex violent past and present, articulating the conflicts and mercies inherent in human experience. Heaney reads from a wide range of poems and offers easy context for the thoughts, feelings, and events behind his work.

This event was sponsored by the Lannan Foundation and recorded October 1, 2003 at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, NM.

Seamus Heaney (1939 – 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was born in the townland of Tamniaran between Castledawson and Toomebridge, Northern Ireland. His family moved to nearby Bellaghy when he was a boy. He 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 >>>