HEANEY, Seamus (1939-2013). An autograph postcard, dated "29.1.82", stating, "Carolle - Thank you for sending these poems ... I am off to Harvard to-morrow ... There is a real authenticity of feeling in the poems ..." With a copy of the poem, annotated.

HEANEY, Seamus (1939-2013).  An autograph postcard, dated "29.1.82", stating, "Carolle - Thank you for sending these poems, and forgive the hasty response - I am off to Harvard to-morrow to teach for a term and am clearing the decks as best I can. There is a real authenticity of feeling in the poems and an [?]unfaked approach to writing. I feel that at times you are a bit too explicit. But that's only my tight-lipped response! I've made a few notes just to let you see what I mean. Cheers, Seamus Heaney." Somewhat bizarrely, the picture on the front of the postcard is of "A nudibranch mollusc Eubranchus farrani from Co. Donegall", the image copyright of the Ulster Museum. Also included in the lot is an original typescript of part of the poem which Carolle had sent to Seamus Heaney, to which the poet has added the following note: "I think this is the poem [an arrow pointing to a couplet]. The rest is more expected - all fine and poignant, but these two lines are a terrific [?]understated wise little poem in themselves." Beneath the note, someone (presumably Carolle) has written, in a bubble, "S.H. comments!" The couplet Heaney refers to in the typescript reads: "Most of the time I don't mind. / It's not as though my face is my fortune."