Seamus Heaney, Les Murray and Derek Walcott

In the midst of praising the TS Eliot Prize judges, Boyd Tonkin likens the winner, Seamus Heaney, to two other great modern poets: Les Murray and Derek Walcott. "Poetry specialists may scorn as pure fiction the special category into which I tend to slot Seamus Heaney from County Derry, Les Murray from the Manning River, New South Wales, and Derek Walcott from the island of St Lucia. Sure enough, they can differ vastly in outlook and approach, Yet each of this trio of giants is both earthy and ecstatic, local and global, imbued with the past but alert to the present. And each has consistently tested and deepened the ties between Eliot's poetic 'tradition' and the 'individual talent' that modifies it."