
DETAILS
Tuesday 19th July, 2022 at 6:30pm (AEST), 9:30am (GMT)
Dr Tara McEvoy, Queen’s University, Belfast
Seamus Heaney in Australia
ABSTRACT
What kind of relationship did the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney have to Australia? How did his interactions with Australian poets shape his own work, and how has his poetry been received in the country? This paper will survey the relationship between Heaney and Australia: drawing on a range of archival material; exploring his friendships with writers including Vincent Buckley and Les Murray; and revisiting his 1994 appearance at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, a significant moment in the poet’s career.
SPEAKER
Tara McEvoy graduated from Queen’s University with a PhD in English Literature in 2020, and was the 2021 O’Donnell Fellow. Tara is a joint 2022 Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast. Tara edits The Tangerine, a Belfast-based magazine of new writing which covers culture and politics.
LOCATION (In-Person and Online)
This free public seminar will be held in-person in the Jabiru Room at the Academic Centre, Newman College. The seminar will also be streamed live online via Zoom. The Zoom room will be open from 6:20 to allow everyone to get the technology sorted. Please keep your microphone on mute for the duration of the talk. We will be taking questions in the room and also via the Zoom chat function, so you can type in your question anytime and the facilitator will ask the speaker the questions at the end of the talk. Please RSVP to Dianne.hall@vu.edu.au if you would like the zoom link.
RECORDING