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

Seamus Heaney

Dylan Thomas is now as much a case history as a chapter in the history of poetry.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Case Chapter History Poetry
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

Expectation Group Poetry Position
I credit poetry for making this space-walk possible.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Myself Possible Space Walk
My point is there’s a hidden Scotland in anyone who speaks the Northern Ireland speech. It’s a terrific complicating factor, not just in Northern Ireland, but Ireland generally.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Complication Factor Myself Point Talk
I suppose you could say my father’s world was Thomas Hardy and my mother’s D.H. Lawrence.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Father Myself World
If you go into an underground train in London – probably anywhere, but chiefly in London – there’s that sense of almost entering a ghostly dimension. People are very still and quiet; they don’t exchange many pleasantries.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Dimension Ghost People Pleasant Quiet Training Yourself
Since I was a schoolboy, I’ve been used to being recognized on the road by old and young, and being bantered with and, indeed, being taunted.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Myself Old Recognition Taunt Young
My experience is that prose usually equals duty – last minute, overdue-deadline stuff or a panic lecture to be written.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Equal Evidence Experience Writing
But that citizen’s perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Brutal Change Citizenship Destruction Perception Possible Pursue Recognition
The kinds of truth that art gives us many, many times are small truths. They don’t have the resonance of an encyclical from the Pope stating an eternal truth, but they partake of the quality of eternity. There is a sort of timeless delight in them.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Art Eternity Forever Kind Quality Small Time Truth
The poet is on the side of undeceiving the world.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Poet World
You can have Irish identity in the north and also have your Irish passport.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Identify Passport Yourself
The amount of sensory material stored up or stored down in the brain’s and the body’s systems is inestimable. It’s like a culture at the bottom of a jar, although it doesn’t grow, I think, or help anything else to grow unless you find a way to reach it and touch it.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Amount Culture Growth Help Material Myself System Thinking
I came from a farming background, and my career was teaching.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Career Farm Teaching
As writers and readers, as sinners and citizens, our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of crediting the positive note.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Citizenship Note Positive Reading Sin Writing
Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Mystery Poetry Relationship Slight

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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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