Poet to Priest-Poet: Eight Letters from Seamus Heaney to Peter Steele SJ

Recalling the acclaimed seventeenth-century priest-poet George Herbert, Seamus Heaney, the beloved Irish Nobel Laureate, summed up the achievement of Peter Steele, a priest- and poet-friend, when he wrote to Steele, ‘George Herbet would be proud of you’.1 A fellow Jesuit, Steele was a lifelong friend of mine. When he passed away, I wrote his obituary for the Sydney Morning Herald2 and reprinted it in Portraits: Popes, Family, and Friends.3 The obituary ended with a brief reference to his friendship with Heaney. At the time I had no idea of its rich significance for those two warm, witty, and learned poets.