News at Eleven: [Seamus Heaney] had never written a poem

in response to scripture before, and says he is not a believer. But clearly the stroke had come as a powerful moment of punctuation in his intensely busy life, and gave him the idea that he should devote more time to himself. "I looked at the calendar after these days in the hospital," he says. "I thought, 'My God, you've never stopped, Seamus.' So, for a year afterwards, I just cancelled everything. I decided that in hospital."

So now there was another pressure, a new conflict to wrestle with. "I spend a lot of time saying 'No' to people," he says, "and then being anxious about saying No."

from The Guardian: A life of rhyme
also BBC News: Poet 'cried for father' after stroke

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