Seamus Heaney reads from a selection of his work

May 14, 1990

Make impulse one with willfulness. During this 1990 reading, part of an Irish Literature Festival, poet Seamus Heaney claims this line, from “The Latch,” as his own poetic self-instruction—and one of the benefits of “getting a little bit older.”

Heaney reads from a selection of his work, including “From Station Island,” “Nesting Ground” and parts of “Squarings” and “Clearances,” a sequence which meditates on the passing of his mother.

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