Seamus Heaney had an immense and unforgettable gift. His fluency, his sensitivity to the atmosphere of place, and his intuitive sense of moments brimming with extraness made his poetry and his equally marvellous prose essays lightning rods for the essence of what it feels like and means to be alive. Equally he articulated how the space left in life by the absence of the dead can take on a shape so powerful it becomes a presence in itself: an absence ‘emptied into us to keep’. 

Seamus Heaney: for Ann Saddlemyer

Call her Augusta

Because we arrived in August, and from now on

This month's baled hay and blackberries and combines

Will spell Augusta's bounty.

(RIP: 13th April 1939 - 30th August 2013)

Black Ice will be released in selected Irish Cinemas on Sept 20th 2013. Here's director Johnny Gogan and co-writer with me on the screenplay talking to DonadClarke

Brian Leyden reads from David Thomson's memoir Woodbrook at the 2013 International Seminar on John McGahern