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The University of Bradford's Writer-in-Residence Dr Christine Finn has provided new and unique insights into the lives of two great poets in her latest book.

'Past Poetic: Archaeology in the Poetry of W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney' considers the way these two Anglo-Irish poets used archaeology in their work, and how it surfaced in their lives.

During her research, Dr Finn traced the path of the poets through archaeological sites, museums, houses, and boglands, and from Byzantine chapels in Italy to the gilded mosaics of Stockholm. She even gained experience as a mosaic-maker while on a scholarship year at Trinity College, Dublin.

She also interviewed Seamus Heaney the year after he received his Nobel Prize, and spent days looking through Yeats's library with his daughter, Anne, at her home near Dublin. The books were donated to the Sligo Instititute of Technology after her death in 2001.

"I was looking for clues about his archaeological visits, but I was also very moved. Sitting down with those books, looking at the pencil markings on the pages, made me feel immediately closer to Yeats and his wife, Georgie Hyde Lees.

"Past Poetic is a history book, a biography of two poets, and also a reference book for anyone interested in poetry. It is also a look at the relationship between archaeology and poetry."

Dr Finn is an award-winning journalist and was a Reuter Journalist Research Fellow before studying archaeology and anthropology at Oxford University as a mature undergraduate and writing a doctorate on which the book is based.

In 2003 she joined the University of Bradford as an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeological Sciences.

She is also the University's Writer-in-Residence where she is writing the authorised biography of the archaeologist, Jacquetta Hawkes, JB Priestley's third wife.

She is also the author of Artifacts: an archaeologist's year in Silicon Valley (2001), and co-editor of Ancient Muses: archaeology and the arts (2003) and Outside Archaeology: material culture and the poetic imagination (2001). In 2002 she was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Past Poetic is published by Duckworth Publishers priced £45.

Media note:

For information from Duckworth Publishers, contact Suzannah Rich at suzannah@duckworth-publishers.co.uk

Further information

For further information, please contact Rachael Ellis in Corporate Communications on (01274) 233084/9 or 07879 437986. Alternatively, e-mail press@bradford.ac.uk or fax on (01274) 236280.

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