Selected comments by Seamus Heaney about M.B. McLatchey:

 

Character

 

[M.B.] is highly intelligent, highly motivated, reticent, mature and humorous. I developed genuine admiration for the coherence, perseverance and intellectual distinction of her work [as a student]. - Seamus Heaney [1990]

 

Academics

 

Her gifts as a reader of Yeats [are] impressive… she impressed me by the breadth of her reading, the acuity and firmness of her critical intelligence and the sympathetic manner she exhibited. - Seamus Heaney [1990]

​

[M.B. is] somebody with a sure and informed purchase on her subject. - Seamus Heaney [1995]

 

Poetry

​

I can see why awards come your way for your poems… [they] have a good confidence and coherence about them… they manage reticence and record nicely, and know what they’re doing technically. - Seamus Heaney [2012]

 

Teaching

 

She has an inwardness with the difficulties of writing… because of her good work as a poet. - Seamus Heaney [1990]

​

As somebody who had written poems herself and who had worked with several distinguished American poets in workshop situations, her engagement with all the writers we discussed was eager and in earnest. - Seamus Heaney [1995]

​

​

​

Note: M.B.'s keynote speech at the 2020 FSPA annual conference has been adapted into an Atlantic Center for the Arts video which celebrates M.B.'s time with Seamus.

​