Seamus Heaney to read at Vassar College, October 3

Internationally acclaimed poet Seamus Heaney will give "A Poetry Reading" in the Villard Room at Vassar College on Tuesday, October 3 at 5:30 p.m. The event is free of charge and open to the public.

Heaney was born in 1939 in County Derry, Northern Ireland. The winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, Heaney is the figurehead of the current revival in Irish literature, and has been called "everybody's favorite Irish poet" and "a worthy successor to Yeats." His works include 11 books of poetry, three books of criticism, and two translations; a version of Sophocles' Philoctetes The Cure at Troy (1990), and the bestseller Beowulf (2000), which received Britain's Whitbread Book of the Year Award. Heaney's poems have frequently appeared in publications such as the New Yorker, Ploughshares, New York Review of Books, and Antaeus.

A resident of Dublin, Heaney spends part of each year teaching at Harvard University, where he is Ralph Waldo Emerson Poet in Residence.

The Elizabeth Bishop Poetry Series has been made possible through the gift of Priscilla H. Rockwell and H.P. Davis Rockwell. Additional funding was made possible through the Helen Forster Novy '28 Fund for Visiting Scholars.

For additional information, call the Office of the Dean of Faculty at (845) 437-5305. Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodation may contact Cathy Jennings, Office of Campus Activities, (845) 437-5370, as far in advance as possible to request appropriate and reasonable accommodations.

Vassar, founded in 1861, is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college located in the scenic Hudson Valley.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations or information on accessibility should contact Campus Activities Office at (845) 437-5370. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

This article was posted on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2000.