"Heaney is keyed and pitched unlike any significant poet now at work in the language, anywhere."--Harold Bloom, The Times Literary Supplement
"In 1938, not a moment too soon, W. B. Yeats abmonished his colleagues: 'Irish poets, learn your trade.' Seamus Heaney, born the following year, has learned his trade so well that it is now a second nature wonderfully responsive to his first."--Denis Donoghue, The New York Times Book Review (front page)
"His is the most striking talent to come out of Ireland since that of the late Patrick Kavanagh."--Stephen Spender
"Heaney has all the primary gifts of a poet, and they are gifts put at the service of a constant meditation on primary themes, on nature and history and moral choice."--John Gross, The New York Times
