ABSTRACT
The principal concern of this chapter is between the Irish and English poetic traditions. Irish poets are very aware of this: unduly so, according to a number of authorities, such as Dillon Johnston and Edna Longley who warns that Ireland is not a good staple diet for the Irish writer. In 1974 Robert Lowell famously called Heaney 'the best Irish poet since Yeats'. Apart from the evaluation here, another question arises: what exactly is meant by 'an Irish poet'? A poet who is Irish, irrespective of what he writes? A poet who writes in the Irish language? Or a poet committed to writing with an awareness of a precedent Irish poetic tradition? Is 'Irish poet' the most helpful way to characterise Heaney? The question of where Heaney placed himself as a poet arose most celebratedly in his reaction to the location of him in Motion—Morrison's The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry.
