Seamus Heaney - RTÉ and Poems Plain

RTÉ and Poems Plain

When he appeared on "The Late Late Show" in 1995 after winning the Nobel Prize, Seamus Heaney recalled that he had read his work on the same show in the late 1960s. Sadly there is no existing recording of this programme, but as well as participating in dozens of RTÉ radio and television productions, Seamus Heaney also presented a number of programmes. In 1972, he presented "Imprint", a books programme on radio. Writing about "Imprint" in the RTÉ Guide at the time, he recalled listening to Austin Clarke's poetry programme:

I remember sitting with my ear to the baize-and-fretwork speaker of a big Cossor wireless picking up that unperturbed voice making its way among the strange squeaks and bubbles of the wave bands (they said it was the old valves that did it) between Dublin and Derry.

Presented here are extracts from another radio series "Poems Plain", in which Seamus Heaney talks about poets and poetry. There is also a short extract from the school programme "Telefís Scoile" in which Heaney discusses "Macbeth".

Poems Plain

"Poems Plain" was a series of short radio talks given by Seamus Heaney on the art of poetry. In this clip from the first programme, Heaney reflects on how the classroom is often the first introduction for many of us to poetry. "It means perhaps the recollection of lines learned by heart by intense repetition, or not learned by heart and paid for by intense application of the strap or the cane."

The Sweetness Of The Local Idiom

Seamus Heaney enjoys sharing with listeners a glossary of north-east Antrim words from the book "The Raindance" by Northern poet John Hewitt. As Heaney puts it, "words that open in my own memory like little songs".

Reading Poems Aloud

For the second time in the series, Heaney discusses reading poems aloud and the issue of poets reading their own work.

Macbeth on Telefís Scoile

Seamus Heaney speaks about Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" on RTÉ's school programme.