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I think of the bog as a feminine goddess-ridden ground, rather like the territory of Ireland itself.

Seamus Heaney

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
Poetry is more a threshold than a path.
SEAMUS HEANEY

One Liner Path Poetry
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
I’m very conscious that people dear to me are alive in my imagination – poets in particular.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Conscious Imagination Myself People Poet
The Heaneys were aristocrats, in the sense that they took for granted a code of behavior that was given and unspoken. Argumentation, persuasion, speech itself, for God’s sake, just seemed otiose and superfluous to them.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Argument Aristocrats Behavior God Talk
In Northern Ireland, helicopters are not usually used to promote poetry.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Poetry Promotion
My father and mother had no sense of entitlement for their children.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Children Father Mom Myself
Eternal life can mean utter reverence for life itself.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Forever Life
I think of Dermot Healy as the heir to Patrick Kavanagh.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Myself Thinking
In poetry, everything can be faked but the intensity of utterance.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Fake Intense Poetry Utter
I came from a farming background, and my career was teaching.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Career Farm Teaching
I spend almost every morning with mail.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Mail Morning Myself
The poet is on the side of undeceiving the world.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Poet World
I think the first little jolt I got was reading Gerard Manley Hopkins – I liked other poems… but Hopkins was kind of electric for me – he changed the rules with speech, and the whole intensity of the language was there and so on.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Intense Language Myself Poem Reading Talk Thinking
I’ve said it before about the Nobel Prize: it’s like being struck by a more or less benign avalanche. It was unexpected, unlooked for, and extraordinary.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Expectation Nobel Ordinary Prize
I suppose you inevitably fall into habits of expression.
SEAMUS HEANEY

Expression Fall Habit Myself

I think of the bog as a feminine goddess-ridden ground, rather like the territory of Ireland itself.

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I think of the bog as a feminine goddess-ridden ground, rather like the territory of Ireland itself.

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