Seamus Heaney - 1965 Eric Gregory Award, 1967 Cholmondeley Award, 1968 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, 1975 EM Forster Award, 1975 Duff Cooper Memorial Prize North, 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature, 1996 Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, 2006 T S Eliot Prize (winner), District and Circle, 2009 David Cohen Prize for Literature
Dr. Declan Kiberd - Trinity College Dublin, First Class Degree with Gold Medal in English and Irish
Ciaran Carson - 1978 Eric Gregory Award, 1987 Alice Hunt Bartlett Award The Irish for No, 1990 Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry Belfast Confetti, 1993 T. S. Eliot Prize First Language: Poems, 1997 Yorkshire Post Book Award (Book of the Year) The Star Factory, 2003 Cholmondeley Award, 2003 Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year) Breaking News
These are the people that have come to meet with our group. Not to mention all the other people that have been teaching our classes. It's really cool because we are just this group of nondescript Americans (as in we didn't have to write a huge paper, prove that we are 4.0 students, or even be in a related liberal arts field) and the people that we get to teach us and talk to us and give us tours and all of that jazz are the best in their respective fields. I always feel a little ridiculous going into them because I never really know who they are until we get there and they are introduced, but they have all been incredible nice and welcoming and easy to understand.
Above are their real credentials, here are my thoughts on them:
Claire Kilroy - If I were a writer, she would be the one I would want to be my writer friend. She seemed really supportive. She was super nice and her readings we actually well picked and well described enough to make me want to go ahead and read her books.
Seamus Heaney - OH MY GOODNESS. Seamus Heaney would be the best grandfather ever. So he's this super fancy poet and really well known and just incredibly respected. When asked what his poetry means or what he was thinking, he basically just said, 'Whatever you want. Just read it.' The poetry that he opened with was all about pens and writing. So at the end, one of the people in our group simply asked him if he still uses a pen. He thought it was a great question.
Dr. Declan Kiberd - He talked to us about Ulysses by James Joyce and how you could read it. The way he talked about it, and once again said (against everything I ever learned in English class) that you don't have to get it to read it. AND to all those people who say that you should read a book even though you say you don't get it, he said, DON'T. Only read a book if you are getting something out of it. Which has kind of always been my policy. If I like it, I like it, if I don't, I don't, and I'm not going to pretentious and put myself through something to make someone else feel better. Now I just have a doctor backing me up =) Also, now I'm interested in reading Ulysses.
Ciaran Carson - "Sometimes when I sit down to write something and am just drawing a blank I - well, I don't know if I should tell you this - if I can't think of anyth - I really don't know if I sh - sometimes I smoke a little weed." That's all I have to say about him.
Anyways, it's been really cool listening to all of them. And they all don't think that they aren't as important as everyone else thinks they are.
And two picture for Aunt Jean:
It's not exactly right, but it's pretty close =)Later,
Anna
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