One of the very first poems I wrote was Docker That fist would drop a hammer on a Catholic and one of the sturdiest was Requiem for the Croppies, written 50 years after 1916 [the year of the Easter Rising]. Being responsible and what it means, what it demands, have indeed preoccupied me maybe too much. But this is it, this is the thing, this is what you're up against.
Seamus HeaneyPart of my gradual education of myself has been to think that there is a deep relationship between the nature of the creature and the worth of the art.
Seamus Heaney