Stephen Burt : John Heaney , who died young , wrote poetry , literary essays , translations . His early works were of earth , and of the sea ; he gained fame writing about divided Ireland . His time in Belfast as student and teacher encompassed the violent years known as the Troubles , the years of the UVF and the IRA , of bombings at funerals and British troops on the streets ; Heaney became a poet of burial sites , of guilt and self-division in terse , halting stanzas . He said later he went south , wrote of civic , family life , dead friends , embraced the numinous . Burt : He became perhaps the most popular serious poet writing in English anywhere .
Stephen Burt : John Heaney , who died young , wrote poetry , literary essays , translations . His early works were of earth , and of the sea ; he gained fame writing about divided Ireland . He said later he went south , wrote of civic , family life , dead friends , embraced the numinous . Burt : He became perhaps the most popular serious poet writing in English anywhere .