Exhibiting Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens (Emory University, 2014)
There are few poets who have captured the ear and the imagination of the world like Seamus Heaney. The Irish Studies Program celebrated its first decade in 2014 with the opening of Seamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens, the first exhibition dedicated to the Nobel prize winning poet since his untimely death in 2013.
The exhibition featured materials from the Heaney collection held in Emory’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library including manuscript drafts, rare illustrated books, photographs and even the surface of his old desk where he wrote some of his celebrated poems.
One of the highlights of the exhibition was a media room with recordings of his poetry read by Heaney himself and by other poets and artists including world-renowned Irish actor Liam Neeson and novelist Salman Rushdie, whose papers are also held by the Stuart A. Rose Library:
"Ultimately, our hope is that visitors will come away from the exhibition with a renewed sense of how Heaney's poetry connects us to what matters in the everyday and the marvelous," Curator, Geraldine Higgins said. "I hope too that they will be inspired to pick up a book of Heaney's poems and lose themselves in the music of what happens."
• Take an online tour of The Music of What Happens here.
• View "Feeling Into Words: A Conversation about Seamus Heaney" with Fintan O'Toole, Fiona Ross and Bernard O'Donoghue, recorded at the exhibition opening in February 2014.
• View "Behind the Scenes at The Music of What Happens" with Maggie Greaves, Geraldine Higgins and Emily Leithauser
• Read Maggie Greaves and Emily Leithauser on curating the exhibition.
• View Ron Schuchard on Hardy, Heaney, and the Divided Tradition of Modern and Contemporary Poetry.
• View 'A Tribute to Seamus Heaney in Poetry and Song' with Natasha Trethewey, Tracy K. Smith, Vona Groarke, Nick Laird, William Corbett, Belinda McKeon, Kevin Young, and the Vega String Quartet.
Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again (National Library of Ireland, 2018-2021)
In July 2018, the National Library of Ireland's (NLI) new exhibition, Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again opened at a new cultural space in the Bank of Ireland, College Green, Dublin. Curated by Geraldine Higgins in collaboration with the NLI, Listen Now Again highlights the amazing literary archive at the NLI, donated by the Heaney family in 2011. Heaney himself loaded the boxes of material into his car and carried them into the library that he and so many Irish writers used and loved.
The theme of transformation is the guiding thread of Listen Now Again, which follows the trajectory of Heaney’s poetry from the earth-bound bog poems of his early work to the airiness and uplift of crediting marvels in his later career. The exhibition reflects on the importance of listening, not just to the sound of Heaney’s poetry but to a music "that you never would have known to listen for." Visitors are invited to explore how Heaney transforms the ordinary world into extraordinary words in an immersive, interactive exhibition filled with objects, photographs and original materials.
Listen Now Again will run at the Culture and Heritage Centre in the Bank of Ireland until 2021 before being relocated to its permanent home in the National Library of Ireland.
• Follow Listen Now Again on twitter.
• Read reviews in the New York Times and the Irish Times.
• Listen to interview on BBC Radio 4, Front Row, here.
• View a Rosemary Magee Creative Conversation with Marie and Catherine Heaney in Sept 2019.
There are few poets who have captured the ear and the imagination of the world like Seamus Heaney. The Irish Studies Program celebrated its first decade in 2014 with the opening of Seamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens, the first exhibition dedicated to the Nobel prize winning poet since his untimely death in 2013.
The exhibition featured materials from the Heaney collection held in Emory’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library including manuscript drafts, rare illustrated books, photographs and even the surface of his old desk where he wrote some of his celebrated poems.
One of the highlights of the exhibition was a media room with recordings of his poetry read by Heaney himself and by other poets and artists including world-renowned Irish actor Liam Neeson and novelist Salman Rushdie, whose papers are also held by the Stuart A. Rose Library:
"Ultimately, our hope is that visitors will come away from the exhibition with a renewed sense of how Heaney's poetry connects us to what matters in the everyday and the marvelous," Curator, Geraldine Higgins said. "I hope too that they will be inspired to pick up a book of Heaney's poems and lose themselves in the music of what happens."
• Take an online tour of The Music of What Happens here.
• View "Feeling Into Words: A Conversation about Seamus Heaney" with Fintan O'Toole, Fiona Ross and Bernard O'Donoghue, recorded at the exhibition opening in February 2014.
• View "Behind the Scenes at The Music of What Happens" with Maggie Greaves, Geraldine Higgins and Emily Leithauser
• Read Maggie Greaves and Emily Leithauser on curating the exhibition.
• View Ron Schuchard on Hardy, Heaney, and the Divided Tradition of Modern and Contemporary Poetry.
• View 'A Tribute to Seamus Heaney in Poetry and Song' with Natasha Trethewey, Tracy K. Smith, Vona Groarke, Nick Laird, William Corbett, Belinda McKeon, Kevin Young, and the Vega String Quartet.
Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again (National Library of Ireland, 2018-2021)
In July 2018, the National Library of Ireland's (NLI) new exhibition, Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again opened at a new cultural space in the Bank of Ireland, College Green, Dublin. Curated by Geraldine Higgins in collaboration with the NLI, Listen Now Again highlights the amazing literary archive at the NLI, donated by the Heaney family in 2011. Heaney himself loaded the boxes of material into his car and carried them into the library that he and so many Irish writers used and loved.
The theme of transformation is the guiding thread of Listen Now Again, which follows the trajectory of Heaney’s poetry from the earth-bound bog poems of his early work to the airiness and uplift of crediting marvels in his later career. The exhibition reflects on the importance of listening, not just to the sound of Heaney’s poetry but to a music "that you never would have known to listen for." Visitors are invited to explore how Heaney transforms the ordinary world into extraordinary words in an immersive, interactive exhibition filled with objects, photographs and original materials.
Listen Now Again will run at the Culture and Heritage Centre in the Bank of Ireland until 2021 before being relocated to its permanent home in the National Library of Ireland.
• Follow Listen Now Again on twitter.
• Read reviews in the New York Times and the Irish Times.
• Listen to interview on BBC Radio 4, Front Row, here.
• View a Rosemary Magee Creative Conversation with Marie and Catherine Heaney in Sept 2019.