In 2009 RTE issued a box set of Heaney reading all this poems, and once you’ve heard him read his own work, it never sounds right spoken by anyone else. But I like this poem. It evokes the traditional musicians and singers I’ve known over the years and suggests something more general about the creation of art.

You can also hear Heaney read this on the Cd ‘The Poet and the Piper’. As he approaches the end of the poem, Liam O’Flynn’s pipes bleed in to play a slow air. It’s perfect.

From ‘Opened Ground’…(1998/2013)