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1. black
2. grey
3. blue
4. red
5. brown
6. white

The poet is on the side of undeceiving the world.

Seamus Heaney

Related Topics

PoetWorld

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More Seamus Heaney Quotes

• 

  In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  FactLyricsMediumPoetryRecognitionTruth
• 

  History says, ‘Don’t hope on this side of the grave.’

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  GraveHistoryHopeSide
• 

  In my early teens, I acquired a kind of representative status: went on behalf of the family to wakes and funerals and so on. And I would be counted on as an adult contributor when it came to farm work – the hay in the summertime, for example.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  FamilyFarmFuneralKindRepresentationWork
• 

  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
  ExpectationGroupPoetryPosition
• 

  I think that water is immediately interesting. It’s just, as an element, it is full of life. It is associated with origin; it is bright – it reflects you.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  BrightInterestingLifeMyselfReflectionThinkingWater
• 

  The completely solitary self: that’s where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis, and those crises are often very intimate also.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  CompleteCrisisIntimateIsolationPoetry
• 

  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
  AwardJudgementPanelPoetrySolidarityYourself
• 

  There’s never going to be a united Ireland, you know.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  CountryKnownUnityYourself
• 

  I’ve been in the habit of helping people.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  HabitHelpMyselfPeople
• 

  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
  BigListeningMyselfSpeaker
• 

  I don’t do as many readings as I used to. There was a time when I was on the road a lot more, at home in Ireland, in Britain, in Canada and the States, a time when I had more stamina and appetite for it.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  HomeMyselfReadingTime
• 

  Poetry is a domestic art, most itself when most at home.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  ArtDomesticHomePoetry
• 

  At home in Ireland, there’s a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  AttitudeAuthorityAvoidFigureHabitHome
• 

  My experience is that prose usually equals duty – last minute, overdue-deadline stuff or a panic lecture to be written.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  EqualEvidenceExperienceWriting
• 

  The experimental poetry thing is not my thing. It’s a programme of the avant-garde: basically a refusal of the kind of poetry I write.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  ExperimentKindMyselfPoetryProgrammeWriting
• 

  I’m a firm believer in learning by heart.

  SEAMUS HEANEY
  BelieveHeartLearning