Ten years on from Seamus Heaney's death, poets and musicians will gather at an event at the Abbey Theatre this weekend to celebrate the life and work of the Derry-born poet.
Known for his generosity and encouragement to the writing community, the Nobel laureate's legacy has grown since his passing following a short illness ten years ago today, according to poet Paula Meehan.
Meehan, who worked as the Ireland Professor of Poetry for three years, says that she first heard Seamus Heaney giving poetry readings while she was a student.
She remembers speaking to him for the first time years later, following the publication of her first volume of poems.
"I had just bought [Heaney’s book] 'The Haw Lantern' in 1987, it had just been published. I had it with me that day and I asked him to sign it.
"He wrote: 'For Paula, A lantern to light the line. With admiration and good wishes, Seamus. 1987.'
"Now I cannot tell you what those words meant.
"I was just buoyed up, and the encouragement, the heart strength I drew from that has sustained me to this day."
At the time, Meehan was giving a workshop and Heaney told her students about poems being an "echo".
"He spoke to students about how sending a poem into the world - you're sending an echo out and you’re waiting for the echo to return.
"That could stand as an emblem of his life, the kindness he sent out, the amazing poems he sent out into the world … and what came back to him, you could only really describe it as a tide of affection and love."
Belfast-based poet Mícheál McCann has been commissioned to write a poem about Heaney's legacy for the 'An Afterwards: A Celebration of Seamus Heaney' event at the Abbey, which is being held in conjunction with Poetry Ireland.
"The aspects that connect us in life, he writes in such an adoring way, a very sharp way but he writes with such a loving eye on really difficult aspects of life," McCann says.
"I find that really liberating even though in many ways a lot of people who love him come from different walks of life, but I think that's part of the extraordinary worldwide appeal this laureate has."
Despite the fact that McCann never met Heaney, he says that Heaney had a very positive influence on his work.
"What's really interesting and what I found very instructive in my own work, is that as I read through his books, you see these emotional lives - you have these access points into incredibly intimate perspectives on life.
"So even though I never met him, my relationship with him feels incredibly meaningful because there’s an emotional latency to the poems.
"I love what Vona Groarke said - 'To read Seamus Heaney is to learn how a poem is put together'.
"There's a great pleasure in how he talks about form and poems well executed as well, which is just as important … and I think that's what this kind of celebration of him is. That he was a wonderful man, a wonderful poet and a Nobel laureate.
"What an extraordinary thing, ten years on, to still being talked about."
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