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At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.

Seamus Heaney

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Seamus Heaney
Age: 74 †
Born: 1939
Born: April 13
Died: 2013
Died: August 30
Actor
Author
Linguist
Playwright
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Seamus Justin Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Ireland
Towards
Figure
Figures
Authority
Habit
Attitude
Ironical
Home
Avoidance

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A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups.
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Nowadays, what an award gives is a sense of solidarity with the poetry guild, as it were: sustenance coming from the assent of your peers on the judging panel.
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Once off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not. -Blackberry picking
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I've nothing against the Queen personally: I had lunch at the Palace once upon a time.
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The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life.
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I rhyme… to see myself, to set the darkness echoing.
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If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.
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I've always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.
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Believe that a further shore is reachable from here.
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Walk on air against your better judgement.
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I have begun to think of life as a series of ripples widening out from an original center.
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The end of art is peace.
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In fact, in lyric poetry, truthfulness becomes recognizable as a ring of truth within the medium itself.
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Then as the years went on and my listening became more deliberate, I would climb up on an arm of our big sofa to get my ear closer to the wireless speaker.
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There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you.
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