The whole relationship between a writer's spiritual/emotional condition and the kind of wordstuff and form-making that's going on in his work is an interesting one. When I was an undergraduate, there was a glib notion around that there was no reason to suppose a bad man could be a good writer.
Seamus HeaneyA public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups.
Seamus HeaneyAt home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.
Seamus HeaneyWithout needing to be theoretically instructed, consciousness quickly realizes that it is the site of variously contending discourses.
Seamus Heaney