Terminus

Seamus Heaney is often classified as a poet of the Belfast Group. This group was founded by Philip Hobsbaum in 1963 after he moved to Belfast to lecture at Queen’s University. Heaney was an original member of this group, and he workshopped many of the poems in his first pamphlet at Belfast Group meetings. Michael Longley joined the group shortly after in 1964. However, while this group greatly influenced the early careers and sometime friendship between Longley and Heaney, the group disbanded in 1972. Both poets are still associated strongly with the Belfast Group, even though the bulk of their acclaimed writing was published in the decades since the group disbanded.

The Northern School overlaps with the Belfast group. This school is distinguished by 20th-century writers from Northern Ireland who wrote about everyday life in their home country. Many poets in this school—including Heaney—subscribe to writing in strict form and meter. Otherwise, each poet in this school has a distinctive poetic style.

While “Terminus” was written almost two decades after the Belfast Group disbanded, motifs like digging and the strong colloquial dialect that distinguished Heaney’s early work are still present.