Bernard O’Donoghue: Editing Heaney

Writers at York

Bernard O’Donoghue discusses The Poems of Seamus Heaney, a landmark collection of Heaney’s works, with Hugh Haughton.

In June 2013 Seamus Heaney made the last of his many visits to York, reading to 400 people in a packed Central Hall at the York Festival of Ideas. He died in August that year. This Autumn, 12 years later, Faber & Faber are publishing The Poems of Seamus Heaney. The book encompasses all the poems Heaney published in his lifetime as well as the small number that appeared after his death: twelve single volumes, from Death of a Naturalist (1966) to Human Chain (2010), and those poems published in pamphlets, journals or magazines with limited circulation. In addition, the book includes a selection of previously unpublished material.

Nearly 1300 pages long, The Poems of Seamus Heaney has been a huge undertaking for its editors, Rosie Lavan and Bernard O’Donoghue, evidence of their scholarship and poetic tact. Editor, translator, medievalist – and prestigious Irish poet – Bernard O’Donoghue will be talking about the book and will then be in conversation with York’s own Hugh Haughton. There will be an opportunity to ask Professor O’Donoghue about the book and about the work of Seamus Heaney, one of Ireland and Britain’s best-loved poets.

The book will be on sale at the event.

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