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As a young poet, you need corroboration, and that’s what publication does.

Seamus Heaney

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
I always believed that whatever had to be written would somehow get itself written.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Believe Myself Writing
The group of writers I had grown up with in the ’60s – Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, James Simmons, John Hewitt, Paul Muldoon – formed a very necessary and self-sustaining group.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Group Necessary Sustainable Writing
The poet is on the side of undeceiving the world.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Poet World
My father and mother had no sense of entitlement for their children.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Children Father Mom Myself
Your temperament is what you write with, but it’s also how you deal with the world.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Deal Temperature World Writing
One doesn’t want one’s identity coerced.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Identity Oneself
You can have Irish identity in the north and also have your Irish passport.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Identify Passport Yourself
The experiment of poetry, as far as I am concerned, happens when the poem carries you beyond where you could have reasonably expected to go.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Expectation Experiment Myself Poetry Reason
A person from Northern Ireland is naturally cautious.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Caution Natural Person
I believe we are put here to improve civilisation.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Believe Civilization Improvement
I’m very conscious that people dear to me are alive in my imagination – poets in particular.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Conscious Imagination Myself People Poet
In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Fact Lyrics Medium Poetry Recognition Truth
It is very true to say that work done by writers is quite often an attempt to give solid expression to that which is bothering them. They feel they have got it right if they express the stress.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Expression Solid Stress True Work Writing
I came from a farming background, and my career was teaching.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Career Farm Teaching
Eternal life can mean utter reverence for life itself.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Forever Life

As a young poet, you need corroboration, and that’s what publication does.

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As a young poet, you need corroboration, and that’s what publication does.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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