Heaney, Seamus Justin

(1939- )

   The eldest in a Catholic family of nine children, he grew up on his father's cattle farm near Castledawson, Londonderry, Northern Ireland. He attended St. Columb's College, Derry, and moved in 1957 to Belfast to continue his studies. He graduated from Queen's University, Belfast, in 1961, and trained as a teacher at St. Joseph's College of Education, where he was a lecturer for three years; then he was a lecturer at Queen's University, Belfast. He was professor of poetry at Oxford University from 1989 to 1994, and from 1982 to 1998 was visiting professor at Harvard. Since 1998 he has been Ralph Waldo Emerson Poet in Residence at Harvard. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. Some people rate him among the leading poets in the English-speaking world. Some of his publications: Eleven Poems, 1965. Lough Neagh Sequence, 1969. Catherine's Poem, 1970. Bog Poems, 1975. Four Poems, 1976. Glanmore Sonnets, 1977. Selected Poems 1965-1975, 1980. New Selected Poems 1966-87, 1990. Beowulf, 1999 (translation). Some of his poems: "Act of Union," "Blackberry-Picking," "Clearances," "Hercules and Antaeus," "Philoctetes," "Singing School," "Station Island," "Sweeney Redivivus," "Viking Dublin: Trial Pieces."

   Sources: Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Biography of Seamus Heaney (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/heaney.htm). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996 (Seamus Heaney). Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1998). Poets from the North of Ireland. Frank Ormsby, ed. reprinted in the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1763. Some of his publications: Poems and Plays, 1788. The national advocates, a poem, 1795. The Stanzas of an English Friend to the Patriots of Spain, 1808. Song for the Amicable Fraternity of Felpham, 1817. Some of his poems: "An Essay on Epic Poetry," "Epistle to John Sargent, Esq.," "Epistle to Mrs. Hannah More," "Hymn for Christmas Day."