Seamus Heaney and American Poetry

Dr Christopher Laverty is an academic researcher based at Queen’s University, Belfast, where he completed his PhD in 2019. His work has been published in Twentieth-century Literature, Irish Studies Review, and Estudios Irlandeses.

• Chapter 1 - Introduction: America and Northern Ireland.- Chapter 2 - Belfast: Heaney in the 1960s.- Chapter 3 -  California 1970-71.- Chapter 4 - Together and Apart: Heaney and Lowell.- Chapter 5 - The Walk on Air: Heaney and Bishop.- Chapter 6 - American Poetry and Heaney’s Final Works.- Chapter 7 - Conclusion.

“The study is engaging, persuasive and wide-ranging, offering a picture of Heaney – as poet, critic and, above all, as a fallible, sometimes capricious person – whose poetry and opinions helped shaped (Northern) Irish and American poetic culture … .” (Tara Stubbs, Irish Studies Review, January 5, 2023)