I'm sorry I started this thread seeing as it has opened up a hornets' nest. I
agree with Tim, though, that Heaney's influence is great. His pronouncements
on poetry reach many people who are not as informed as we are as to poetry’s
variety, and who may be led to believe that Heaney's practice is the
measurement of true poetry. The likely result being that Heaney's poetic
becomes continually perpetuated within the UK literary culture, and more and
more mainstream poets are “created” by Faber etc. in the process.
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