In a Dark Time … The Eye Begins to See

Poet Seamus Heaney, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature was born in County Derry, 30 miles northeast of Belfast. The eldest of nine children, he became a teacher and a writer who now lectures at Harvard. Heaney earns much praise from fellow writers. American poet Robert Lowell called him the most important Irish poet [...]

In Catholicism limbo is the temporary place of souls which are purified of sin. It is also the permanent place of the souls of unbaptized children who are excluded from the vision of Christ. After reading this poem it would be easy to rail against the Catholic Church for its stern and dispassionate rejection of unbaptized [...]

At times I suspect my love of Yeats’ poetry makes it difficult for me to fully appreciate other Irish poets because too often I end up trying to compare their poetry to that of Yeats’ poetry. In Selected Poems 1966-1987 Seamus Heaney, like Yeats, often refers to classic Irish literature. For instance, one section of the [...]

The fourth poem “ Summer 1969” continues Seamus Heaney’s exploration of the effects of violence in “Singing School.” It’s a quite remarkable statement of the guilt that a young person might well feel while watching riots in his home country while he is studying abroad: from Singing School Summer 1969 While the Constabulary covered the mob Firing into the [...]