Best of Ireland: Seamus Heaney Poems

Two-thirds of the poetry collections sold in the UK 2008 were by Seamus Heaney. His poems combine aural beauty, carefully crafted textures and muscular language “rich with the tones and smell of earth.” Heaney created poetry from his native background: Modern Northern Ireland, its farms and cities beset with civil strife, its natural culture and language infested by English rule. We’ll discuss the power and popularity of Heaney’s poetry through a selection of his poems, supplied by the instructors.