The poet is on the side of undeceiving the world. Seamus Heaney More Quotes by Seamus Heaney More Quotes From Seamus Heaney Harvard created wonderful conditions for me as a writerbut the writing was done, almost entirely, when I got home. Seamus Heaney done home writing It has as much to do with the energy released by linguistic fission and fusion, with the buoyancy generated by cadence and tone and rhyme and stanza, as it has to do with the poem's Seamus Heaney buoyancy fusion energy Hope for a great sea-change timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive. Seamus Heaney forgiveness forgiving sea If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness. Seamus Heaney inner-life ifs art Smile As you find a rhythm Working you, slow mile by mile, Into your proper haunt. Seamus Heaney rhythm smile miles Now it’s high watermark and floodtide in the heart and time to go. The sea-nymphs in the spray will be the chorus now. What’s left to say? Suspect too much sweet-talk but never close your mind. It was a fortunate wind that blew me here. I leave half-ready to believe that a crippled trust might walk and the half-true rhyme is love. Seamus Heaney heart sweet believe Im a firm believer in learning by heart. Seamus Heaney firm believer heart Once I was on the job, once I had got started, I felt safe enough, but the anticipation made me tense. Seamus Heaney anticipation safe jobs The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage. Seamus Heaney wetness centre might It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir. Seamus Heaney difficult history God is a foreman with certain definite views Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure. Seamus Heaney god views order Anything Can Happen is also, incidentally, a poem that arose from teaching. I'd talked about the Horace Ode (I, 34) [on which the poem is based] in a lecture I gave at Harvard in the fall of 2000 entitled Bright Boltsand remembered it after the Twin Towers attack. Seamus Heaney towers teaching fall The poems I did write there [in Harvard] include Alphabets the 1984 Phi Beta Kappa poem and A Sofa in the Forties. And, of course, the John Harvard poem for the 350th anniversary Villanelle for an Anniversary. Seamus Heaney alphabet harvard writing Harvard meant a lot in my writing life from the beginning, even though I didnt actually do much composition on the spot. Seamus Heaney spots harvard writing Loyalism, or Unionism, or Protestantism, or whatever you want to call it, in Northern Ireland - it operates not as a class system, but a caste system. Seamus Heaney class-system caste-system want I suppose I'm saying that defiance is actually part of the lyric job Seamus Heaney defiance jobs I have always thought of poems as stepping stones in one's own sense of oneself. Seamus Heaney stepping-stones oneself stones A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups. Seamus Heaney groups political expectations Then as the years went on and my listening became more deliberate, I would climb up on an arm of our big sofa to get my ear closer to the wireless speaker. Seamus Heaney listening hands years Nowadays, what an award gives is a sense of solidarity with the poetry guild, as it were: sustenance coming from the assent of your peers on the judging panel. Seamus Heaney awards judging giving
