The Irish poet known as the most relevant wordsmith since Yeats died in a Dublin hospital on Friday at 74 years old.
Seamus Heaney, a Nobel Prize-winning poet who has been touted as an enormous influence on 20 century prose, passed away due to a short illness, according to his family, the New York Times reported.
Faber & Faber-the publishing house that printed Heaney's work for nearly half a century- released a statement praising the life of the poet on their website, calling him "one of the world's greatest writers."
"His impact on literary culture is immeasurable...He was nothing short of an inspiration to the company, and his friendship over many years is a great loss," Faber wrote.
The acclaimed poet was born in Northern Ireland on April 13, 1939, on a farm in Northern Ireland's County Derry.
His breakout collection, "Death of a Naturalist," gained him acclaim and literary prominence among his fellow scribes.
He often wrote about sectarian issues in England, as Catholics were increasingly demanding Northern Ireland shake itself free from British authority at the time.
For Heaney, who was also Catholic, both sides of the issue made sense-he didn't support English control, but he was a fan of British literature and culture, the New York Times reported. He scribbled notes on nature-rocks, waterways, and bogs-and used them as devices to illustrate issues in society that reached Catholics and agnostics alike.
He was one of the only modern poets that was well-loved by readers, scholars and literary critics.
The public caught a glimpse into his creative process in "Digging," the first poem in "The Death of a Naturalist":
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
Heaney is survived by his wife, Marie, and three children Christopher, Michael and Catherine Ann.
