Irish poet Seamus Heaney has died aged 74, news is just breaking so I imagine today or perhaps yesterday. In fact I see it was earlier today.
I had the dubious pleasure of being his 'minder' at a Cambridge Poetry Festival one year, probably the last one in 1985. He was the big name that year, however consuming large amounts of local ale somebody had to keep an eye on him. In fact he had a superb sense of humour and was quite generous in his views on other poets participating in the festival. I had never read anything by him at that time, but after listening to him and thereafter reading a fair amount have been a fan since.
He was a great poet and deserved the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to him in 1995.
His death leaves a big space in poetry that will be hard to fill.