01 May 2022
On This Day
1 May 2022 Cheryl

1 May 1966: Death of a Naturalist is first published

Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney

In 1953, Seamus Heaney’s brother, Christopher, was killed in a road accident at the age of four while Heaney was at college. Heaney wrote two poems: Mid-Term Break and The Blackbird of Glanmore in memory of Christopher. [1]

First published on 1 May 1966, Death of a Naturalist is a collection of poems written by Irish poet, Seamus Heaney.

The collection was Heaney’s first major published volume and consists of 34 short poems and it did much to establish Heaney’s reputation as the leading Irish poet of his generation. It is largely concerned with childhood experiences and the formulation of adult identities, family relationships, and rural life. The book begins with one of Heaney’s best-known poems, Digging, and includes Mid-Term Break and his renowned poem, Death of a Naturalist which won the Cholmondeley Award, the Gregory Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.

Seamus Heaney was born in Northern Ireland on 13 April 1939, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995 and died aged 74 on 30 August 2013 in Dublin.