SEAMUS HEANEY (13 APRIL, 1939 - 30 AUGUST, 2013) SENT ME A POSTCARD

 

Seamus Heaney was born on this day (13 April) and died at 74 in 2013.

He was and still is revered, much-loved and much-missed.

He leaves an admirable body of work, mainly poetry but also prose.

His first collection, Death of a Naturalist (1966), is as fresh and wonderful today as it was back then.  It is a favourite of mine, as are Door into the Dark (1969),  North (1975), The Spirit Level (1996) and Human Chain (2010).  In fact, all of his books deserve to be stacked beside him on literature's pedestal.

He won many awards including the Nobel Prize in Literature (1995) "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past."

He was the fourth Irish Nobel Laureate after W. B. Yeats (1923), George Bernard Shaw (1925) and Samuel Beckett (1969).  He said: "You hope you just live up to it.  It's extraordinary."

In the early 1950s, the Heaney family moved to Bellaghy, near Derry and about 5 miles from Magherafelt.  I mention the geography because a great pal of mine, Tom, lived in Magherafelt and knew the Heaneys.  When Tom discovered I was a massive Seamus fan, he encouraged me to write to him, which I did, enclosing a pamphlet of my own poetic efforts.

To my total joy, Seamus Heaney replied with a postcard depicting an artwork called Turfstacks on the Bog:

Treasure!

On another occasion, in the late 1990s, I saw him studying the train timetable at King's Cross station.  I was about 4 feet from him but, bizarrely, I could not pluck up the courage to say hello.  Idiot. Me, not him!

So, on this his birthday, a huge salute to Seamus Heaney.