I’ve always thought Heaney a good poet but subjected to overblown praise. Nobel Prize? Well, each to their own… one criticism aimed at him goes to the other extreme: ‘… bogs, bejaysus and begorrah.’ Which is malicious but also very funny. Comparison to W.B. Yeats strike me as off the mark as well: Yeats was the much greater poet, imo, embedded in history in a way that Heaney was not. Against the background of ‘The Troubles,’ he adroitly sidestepped his way. From Belfast to Sandymount, and beyond…There is no equivalent of ‘Easter 1916’ or ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.’ Yeats, of course, was lucky to have the young Ezra Pound as secretary for a while who helped him clean up his Celtic Twilight-isms and leave the 19th Century behind. Heaney I find parochial, but more interesting than minor lyricists such as Thomas or Larkin. I would offer the late Geoffrey Hill, whom ironically Heaney championed for the post that he had been elected to earlier, that of Oxford Professor of Poetry (1989-1994). Hill (2010-2015). But Hill is a difficult poet… With a feeling and knowledge of music which might be apposite in this gathering. His surviving recorded lectures at Oxford, gloriously deep, amusing, rambunctious are enlivened by his musical sense: he’s a fair singer and occasionally breaks in to song to illustrate a point, which offers another dimension to his verse, perhaps - his deft technical handling of the sound of poetry against his background of several languages, massive erudition and perhaps his roots in the prewar working class… But as ever: à chacun son goût…