Join the Circle for a discusson of works by Irish poets, Seanus Heaney and Paul Muldoon. View online here – Seamus Heaney_Paul Muldoon; printed copies available at the Help Desk.
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) was an acclaimed Irish poet born in County Derry, Northern Ireland. He began publishing poetry in the 1960s, earning recognition for collections such as Death of a Naturalist (1966) and Human Chain (2010). He also wrote literary criticism and translations, including an award-winning translation of Beowulf. Heaney taught at Harvard University and served as Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. In 1995, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for works celebrated for their lyrical beauty and depth, which explored Irish history, rural life, and the complexities of human experience. He died in Dublin in 2013.
Paul Muldoon (born 1951) is an acclaimed Irish poet from County Armagh, Northern Ireland, who studied at Queen’s University Belfast. He has published numerous poetry collections, including Moy Sand and Gravel, which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and Joy in Service on Rue Tagore (2024). His honors include the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Griffin International Prize for Excellence in Poetry, and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. In addition to poetry, Muldoon has written plays, opera libretti, and literary criticism, and edited Paul McCartney’s The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. He has taught at several leading universities and is currently a professor at Princeton University.