The end of art is peace

Musings on a poem by Seamus Heaney

During my time in Northern Ireland, I had the privilege of visiting the Seamus Heaney Homeplace, a museum dedicated to the Nobel prize winning poet in his hometown of Bellaghy. One of my favorite displays in the museum contains several iterations and hand-written drafts of Heaney’s poem “The Harvest Bow,” published in his 1979 collection Field Work.

The …