‘Seamus Heaney Listen Now Again’ travelling exhibition on show in the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, Atlanta

The National Library of Ireland’s (NLI’s) Seamus Heaney Listen Now Again travelling exhibition was on show in the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, Atlanta. 

The exhibition which opened in March and ran until the middle of April provided visitors with an overview of the acclaimed NLI exhibition at the Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre, College Green, Dublin.

The award winning exhibition which opened in this venue in 2018, has been extended until the end of 2025. It showcases some of the key artefacts from the vast material donated by the Nobel Laureate in Literature to the National Library of Ireland. The Curator of the exhibition Geraldine Higgins, Associate Professor of English, and Director of the Irish Studies Program at Emory University now welcomes the travelling exhibition to Atlanta, Georgia.

This exhibition coincided with the Richard Ellmann Lectures. The inaugural Ellmann lecture was by Seamus Heaney in 1988. Richard Ellmann was the American Critic and Biographer of many Irish writers, well-known for his pioneering work on William Butler Yeats. Professor Higgins has been director of this series for the past seven years and this exhibition marks the 10^th anniversary of Heaney’s passing. Alongside the NLI’s exhibition, Emory University has on display the notes from that first Richard Ellmann lecture alongside other items from the Rose Library.

Geraldine Higgins was delighted to host the traveling exhibition, as it links so well to the theme of this year’s Ellmann Lectures, ‘Writing Lives’. The lectures ‘consider the relationship between art, life and writing in various forms and contexts.’ This year’s distinguished speakers are American poet Natasha Trethewey and Irish writer Fintan O’Toole.

For the Curator, the travelling exhibition gives people a sense of connection to Ireland, and she encouraged people to visit the exhibition should they ever be in Dublin. She talked of the strong connections between Seamus Heaney, Emory University, and Ireland.