Top
Skip to Content
LOGO(small) - Queen's University Belfast
  • Our facebook
  • Our instagram
  • Our x-twitter
LOGO(large) - Queen's University Belfast

The Seamus Heaney Centre

  • Home
  • About
    • The Centre
    • The Blackbird
    • The Heaney Community
    • Literary Belfast
    • Collections at the Seamus Heaney Centre
  • Our People
    • The SHC Fellows
    • Ciaran Carson & Publishing Fellows
    • Fulbright Scholars
    • Children's Writing Fellow
    • Visiting International Poetry Fellows
    • Ireland Chair of Poetry
  • Study
    • The Poetry Summer School
    • Student Showcases and Opportunities
    • Writing Groups
    • New Students...
    • SHC X Fighting Words
    • Hear from Alumni
  • First Collection Poetry Prize
    • Poetry Prize 2025
    • Poetry Prize 2024
    • Poetry Prize 2023
    • Poetry Prize 2022
    • Poetry Prize 2021
    • Poetry Prize 2020
  • Resources
    • The SHC Podcast
    • SHC Publications
    • Criticism & Ideas on Writing
    • Films & Virtual Events
    • Writers' Interviews
    • Tiny Masterclasses
  • News
  • Events
    • SHC Presents...
    • Ekphrasis: Writing & Art
    • Conferences
    • Reading Seamus Heaney
    • Translation
  • Home
  • About
    • The Centre
    • The Blackbird
    • The Heaney Community
    • Literary Belfast
    • Collections at the Seamus Heaney Centre
  • Our People
    • The SHC Fellows
    • Ciaran Carson & Publishing Fellows
    • Fulbright Scholars
    • Children's Writing Fellow
    • Visiting International Poetry Fellows
    • Ireland Chair of Poetry
  • Study
    • The Poetry Summer School
    • Student Showcases and Opportunities
    • Writing Groups
    • New Students...
    • SHC X Fighting Words
    • Hear from Alumni
  • First Collection Poetry Prize
    • Poetry Prize 2025
    • Poetry Prize 2024
    • Poetry Prize 2023
    • Poetry Prize 2022
    • Poetry Prize 2021
    • Poetry Prize 2020
  • Resources
    • The SHC Podcast
    • SHC Publications
    • Criticism & Ideas on Writing
    • Films & Virtual Events
    • Writers' Interviews
    • Tiny Masterclasses
  • News
  • Events
    • SHC Presents...
    • Ekphrasis: Writing & Art
    • Conferences
    • Reading Seamus Heaney
    • Translation
  • Our facebook
  • Our instagram
  • Our x-twitter
In This Section
  • The Friday Critique
  • The Twelve Reads of Christmas
  • Notions
  • The Saturday Matinee
  • The Sunday Spotlight
  • Staff Picks 2024

  • Home
  • Seamus Heaney Centre
  • Resources
  • Criticism & Ideas on Writing

Criticism & Ideas on Writing

Criticism at Queen's

Reading, writing, and thinking about writing is a vital part of our postgraduate courses. Students are encouraged to read widely and think deeply, on a broad range of texts during their studies, whether they are focusing on a purely creative, or critical pathway. Read more about postgraduate courses here. 

The Friday Critique

Our students are dedicated to generating healthy, dynamic critical debate. They're bringing short-form reviews of new writing into the world on a weekly basis.

The Saturday Matinee

Our students care about good writing on the page and on the screen. Regulars at the Queen's Film theatre, they're sharing short-form film reviews each weekend. 

Notions: Theories of Writing and Reading

Students and alumni share their thoughts on the literary process and reading habits in this video series of observation, obscurity and oddity.

The Sunday Spotlight

Our students are passionate about all things theatrical. Every week they will share their experiences of the stage and theatre scene here in Belfast. 

The Twelve Reads of Christmas

A series of 60-second shorts to celebrate just some of the new writing, produced this year by our staff, students, Fellows and friends.

Every year we're amazed at the round up of publications and productions by writers associated with the Seamus Heaney Centre, and while we've had fewer opportunities to squeeze into venues and raise glasses together, this year has been no exception. Watch the short films here. 


Staff Picks 2024

Wondering what the staff at The Seamus Heaney Centre enjoyed? Look no further than our exciting staff picks of 2024!

Each member of our staff works hard year round, now it's time to celebrate another successful year by choosing our favourites. This can be a film, or a theatre production, a book or a poetry collection! 

Take a look at our Staff Picks 2024.


The Candlelight Master, by Michael Longley
by Rachel Mawhinney

When Longley says in the beautifully laconic “Poem”, ‘I am the Candlelight Master/ striking a match in the shadows’, it seems to hint towards the contents of this collection; fragments of light set amidst darkness. 

This is Longley’s latest collection, and in it, he moves like a grandmaster chess player, pieces positioning with exactitude on the board. ‘The Candlelight Master’ is a book of reflections and shadows, observed with the acuity of a life-long cataloguer. In “Flower-Names”, Longley takes us back to the 1988 murder of George Larmour on the Lisburn Road and the elegy “The Ice Cream Man” from his collection, ‘Gorse Fires’. He is not afraid to revisit pain, re-examining the capacity of words for healing, refusing to be silenced by acts which themselves are unspeakable.

He continues to sew his greek mythology into the fertile backdrop of Carrigskeewaun and we are glad to be soothed once more by the recitations of his masterful listing. In “Fen Violet” he says of his daughter, ‘You paint flowers, Sarah, as though they have souls.’ Similarly, he paints worlds out of words, his poems like little charges, sent out full of colour and soul. 

The gentler side of this body of work, most exquisitely captured in poems like “Toes” and “Tadpoles” are full of Longley’s enduring love for his grandchildren. In contrast, the much darker presence alive in “Moths and Butterflies” and “Dandelions” are for the forgotten children of the Holocaust . The exploration into the complexity of what it is to be human is stretched throughout the collection from the smallest observations to the grandest scale where men die as animals in “War” and “Victor”.

Pleasanter moments can be found infused in poems like “Key-changes” where we can feel the nostalgia humming as clearly as the notes played by his childhood piano teacher. “Brother” and “Peter”, are elegies for his twin brother, and are so delicately done, they seem like kisses upon the page. There is much warmth as these poems gather about each other, meditations on life in “December”, and as the book closes with the semi-found poem, “Love”, it is not hard to feel the familiar sense of encircling, healing and homecoming. And for that, Longley’s readers are still hoping, still listening.

From  “In My Sleep”

I am relieved
You were awake
To hear me speak:
Goodness. Spindrift

Read more Read less

Meet the Editor
Darcey Youngman

Darcey is currently the editor and coordinator of the criticism at The Seamus Heaney Centre. She is an alumni and graduated with a MA in Creative Writing in 2023. Previous editors include: Dara McWade, Rose Winter and Manuela Moser. 

To submit a review for the Friday Critique, The Saturday Matinee or The Sunday Spotlight, send submissions or enquiries addressing Darcey to - shc@qub.ac.uk,


Criticism & Ideas on Writing
  • Resources
  • The Friday Critique
  • The Twelve Reads of Christmas
  • Notions
  • The Saturday Matinee
  • The Sunday Spotlight
  • Staff Picks 2024
QUB Logo
Contact Us

Seamus Heaney Centre
38-40 University Road, Belfast
BT7 1NN

GET DIRECTIONS

Phone: 028 9097 1077
Email: shc@qub.ac.uk 

Quick Links

  • Home
  • Study
  • People
  • Literary Belfast
  • News
  • Events

© Queen's University Belfast 2024
  • Privacy and cookies
  • Website accessibility
  • Freedom of information
  • Modern slavery statement
  • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
  • University Policies and Procedures
Information
  • Privacy and cookies
  • Website accessibility
  • Freedom of information
  • Modern slavery statement
  • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
  • University Policies and Procedures

© Queen's University Belfast 2024

Manage cookies