Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1989,

and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a poet, a Catholic ulsterman, he's been called the best Irish poet since Yates.

Others go further describing his writing as the finest in the English language today.

He's won a clutch of literary prizes and this summer followed the distinguished footsteps of Arnold,

orden and graves into the position of Oxford Professor of Poetry.

He said this is his chance to stir the cultural pot, an indication that this particular poet,

liked by his readers and acclaimed by the critics, sees no difficulty in harnessing popularity.

He is Seamus Heaney.

Seamus, how much did it matter to you being elected to that high office?

Well, it began to matter more to me after the, was declared beforehand I kept it at a

distance within myself I mean I I took it all very playfully and in fact many of the

remarks I made inside about three minutes of hearing the result were faintly

skeptical. But I have to say that it's impossible not to respond to the great arch that stretches back and not to respond to the

sense of occasion in Oxford itself. It is a fact that a great institution

with a great history, the university first of all and then the professorship does give you a sense of being

responsible to something more than yourself. So what are you now called upon to do? I mean how do you profess poetry?

Well, the statutory requirement is to give three lectures each year, one in each term.

And I was looking at the original founding statutes and they are to speak of the old poets in order to

polish the endowments of the young I think and to help in human and sacred learning.

You also have a wonderful title at Harvard, don't you?

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