[Unedited] Michael Longley with Krista Tippett

<p>To reassert the liveliness of ordinary things, precisely in the face of what is hardest and most broken in life and society — this has been Michael Longley’s gift as one of Northern Ireland’s foremost living poets. He is known, in part, as a poet of “the Troubles” — the violent 30-year conflict between Protestants and Catholics, English and Irish. And he is a gentle voice for all of us now, wise and winsome about the everyday, never-finished work of social healing.</p><p>Michael Longley has written more than 20 books of poetry including <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/michael-longley-collected-poems/9781930630314"><i>Collected Poems</i></a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gorse-Fires-Michael-Longley/dp/0916390489"><i>Gorse Fires</i></a>, <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-stairwell/9781930630697"><i>The Stairwell</i></a> and his most recent collection, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08HVYK495/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0"><i>The Candlelight Master</i></a>. He was the professor of poetry for Ireland from 2007 to 2010 and is a winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Hawthornden Prize. He was also the international winner of the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize — and that same year was honored with the Freedom of the City of Belfast.</p><p>This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Michael Longley — The Vitality of Ordinary Things." <a href="https://onbeing.org/programs/the-vitality-of-ordinary-things/#transcript">Find the transcript</a> for that show at onbeing.org.</p>