Review by Adam Kirsch in Slate
If you were to make a map of 20th-century English-language poetry, Ireland would not be a small island but a sprawling continent. Thanks mostly to two Nobel Prize-winning poets, W.B. Yeats and Seamus...
View ArticleOn “The Bloodaxe Book Of Poetry Quotations”
Unexpectedly enthralling collection of acid one-liners and chewy ruminations on the most complex of the literary arts and its tormented practitioners. Insightful and funny. – John Walsh, Independent...
View ArticleOn “Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney”
A book of rare stature, vivid and profound in seeking out the hiding places of Heaney’s power. John Carey, The Sunday Times A uniquely interesting book because of the interviewer’s tact, his special...
View ArticleInterview by Elizabeth MacDonald
You have been a civil servant now for thirty odd years. How do you relate to Yeats’ dictum that there can be either perfection of the life or perfection of the work? Yeats’s melodies are so memorable...
View ArticleInterview by Michael Garvey
How did you come into poetry and how did you come to poetry? I don’t really think you come to poetry; poetry comes to you. I would say that I knew virtually from the age of three – which was the age at...
View ArticleInterview by Mark Thwaite
You say [in Troubled Thoughts, Majestic Dreams] that what you recall from school about poetry is a physical reaction to language. Is that still the case now? Is that the first way that you judge the...
View ArticleInterview by Kieran Owens
Your latest collection of poems, ‘Exemplary Damages’, has just been published by the Anvil Press, whereas your first collection, ‘Kist’, was published by The Dolmen Press 20 years ago. How have you...
View ArticleInterview by Brendan Guildea
Do you think poetry, as a medium, is dead to the masses? In Ireland, poetry is more respected than read. But the fact that it is respected means that there is a favourable environment in which to...
View ArticleBook Depository Interview By Mark Thwaite
Have you known Seamus Heaney for long, Dennis? How did you become friends? Years ago, I wrote that ‘Heaney’s lack of self-importance makes those he meets feel important, and there can scarcely be a...
View ArticleInterview by Eugene O’Connell
Was Stepping Stones, your book of interviews with Seamus Heaney, intended to be more than a biography? It would be more accurate to say that, at first, I had less than a biography in mind. My initial...
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