Boxer, Rocky V actor Tommy Morrison dies

Tommy Morrison, the former heavyweight champion who stood toe-to-toe with Lennox Lewis and George Foreman and later tested positive for HIV, died Monday. He was 44.

Morrison died Sunday night at a Nebraska hospital, said Tony Holden, his longtime promoter and close friend. The family would not disclose the cause of death.

In 1993, Morrison beat Foreman to win the WBO heavyweight title, only to lose it to unheralded Michael Bentt in a defeat that scuttled a showdown with Lewis. Morrison would fight Lewis a couple of years later, getting knocked out in the sixth round in Atlantic City, N.J.

Morrison, nicknamed "The Duke," never reached the status of such contemporaries as Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, but it was surely a full career.

He was a prodigious puncher whose bid to fight in the 1988 Seoul Olympics ended at the hands of Ray Mercer, who later dealt Morrison his first professional loss. He had a starring role in Rocky V alongside Sylvester Stallone. And perhaps most memorably, Morrison tested positive for HIV when the virus still carried a significant stigma, only to declare later the test was false.

Along with numerous legal issues, including a prison sentence that stemmed from weapons and drunk driving, Morrison's name became attached to headlines that would eventually overshadow his work in the ring.

"If Tommy was fighting today, he no doubt would be a world champion," Holden said. "You have to look at who he was fighting in the '90s, the guys in that division were Tyson, Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe, Ray Mercer, George Foreman. There's no one with that talent today. Tommy would absolutely dominate if he were in his prime boxing today."

Morrison won his first 28 professional fights, beating faded champions such as Pinklon Thomas along the way. His career reached its apex in the summer of 1993 with a unanimous decision over Foreman, then in the midst of his comeback, to claim a vacant title.

As with so many things in Morrison's life, the good was quickly followed by the bad.

Morrison was in line for a high-profile bout with Lewis when he was upset by Bentt in Tulsa, Okla., not far from where Morrison was raised. He was knocked down three times and the fight was called before the first round ended.

Along with the stinging defeat, Morrison saw a potential $7.5-million US payday for a title unification fight against Lewis wash away.

"I zigged when I should have zagged," Morrison said afterward. "It's one of those situations you have to live with and learn from it. I'll be back."

Morrison indeed came back, but he was never the same feared fighter. He beat a bunch of long shots and faded stars over the next couple of years before his loss to Lewis.

That fight happened in October 1995. By February, Morrison had tested positive for HIV.

He'd been preparing for another fight that winter when his blood test came back positive for the virus that causes AIDs. Morrison's license was quickly suspended by Nevada, and the ban was, in effect, upheld by every other sanctioning body. Morrison said at a news conference he'd never fight again, blaming his plight on a "permissive, fast and reckless lifestyle."

His lifestyle never changed, though, even when he stepped away from the ring.

He had already run afoul of the law in 1993, when he pleaded guilty to assaulting a college student. He also dealt with weapons charges and multiple DUI incidents over the years. He was finally sentenced to two years in prison in 2000, and another year was added to his sentence in 2002 for violating parole.

When he was released, Morrison said his HIV tests had resulted in false positives, and he wanted to resume his career. He passed medical tests in Arizona — even as Nevada stood by its decision — and returned to the ring. Morrison fought twice more in his career, winning once in West Virginia and for the final time in Mexico. He finished with a record of 48-3-1 with 42 knockouts.

"Tommy's a very stubborn person and he views things the way he wants to view things. That's his right and privilege," Holden said. "All through his career, him and I would come not to physical blows but disagreements on certain things. We always ended up friends. That was Tommy.

"That's the way Tommy took off after he was told he was HIV-positive," Holden added. "When he first was told, I was taking him to seek treatment and to different doctors around the country. And then he started research on the Internet and started saying it was a conspiracy. He went in that direction and never looked back."

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'Blurred Lines' parody kicked off YouTube for being too 'inappropriate'

[View the story "'Blurred Lines' parody kicked off YouTube for being too 'inappropriate'" on Storify]

Storified by CBC News Community· Mon, Sep 02 2013 10:00:42

Robin Thicke's hit single Blurred Lines may have topless women in the video and messages about the size of the singer's penis, but a video parody by a group of Australian law students is the version that got kicked off YouTube.

The parody is a feminist version, called Defined Lines, in which students Adelaide Dunn, Olivia Lubbock and Zoe Ellwood play on gender stereotypes.

Instead of topless women, they use half-naked men who they pour whipped cream on, pull around on dog leashes, and generally boss around. 

The video, which was part of University of Auckland's Law Revue show, went viral when it was posted on YouTube Friday night, garnering more than 300,000 views during the weekend, according to The Northern Star. YouTube claims the video violates its terms and conditions by displaying sexually explicit content. 

To get the right tune in your head, take a listen to the original Robin Thicke song:

Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines ft. T.I., Pharrellrobinthickevevo

The parody starts with the women singing, "Every bigot shut up," while they get shoulder massages from three men.

It's followed up with lyrics like:

"We're feeling the frustration from all the exploitation. Prepare for your castration."

And: 

"Boy you'd better quit all your sexist ways, so hear our manifesto of the modern age. It's time to undermine the masculine confines 'cause we don't wanna grind." 

And:

"You can't just grab me, it's a sex criiiiiiiiime" #BlurredLines parody love <3LaurenDigital

What should and should not be shown online and beyond came into question this past week after Miley Cyrus gave a raunchy performance of Blurred Lines with Robin Thicke while wearing a tan-coloured bikini. 

She changed ALOT! #MileyCyrus #RobinThicke #lovethem #mileychanged #alot #vma #awards #blurredlines #performanceBelieber!

The performance - and her attire - ignited a fierce debate online and among parents. 

Miley Cyrus's turn on VMAs: 'Trashy' or 'brilliant'?View the story "Miley Cyrus's turn on VMAs: 'Trashy' or 'brilliant'?" on Storify ] Miley Cyrus's turn on VMAs: 'Trashy' or 'brilliant'? S...

Miley Cyrus's raunchy act draws ire from parents' groupThe U.S.-based Parents Television Council has made a complaint to MTV after former child star Miley Cyrus's raunchy performance at the Vi...

After the Blurred Lines parody video was yanked from YouTube, the creators spoke out.

"It's been flagged by users as inappropriate because of sexual content and stuff like that. It was meant to be a comedic sketch and the fact it's been taken down is a massive double standard," Olivia Lubbock, one of the women in the video, told Fairfax New Zealand News.

"The message really is just that we think that women should be treated equally, and as part of that, we're trying to address the culture of objectifying women in music videos," she said.  

Since YouTube took it down, several other people have uploaded the video to the site, so it is available at least for now.

Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines UNRATED Feminists Parody HD Version "Defined lines" by Law Studentsxonlinecompany

Did YouTube make the right decision by taking down the parody? Should the Robin Thicke and Miley Cyrus videos be taken down? Why or why not?

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Irish poet Seamus Heaney's funeral draws politicians, rock stars

Heaney's last words were 'Don't be afraid,' sent to his wife, Marie, above, by way of a text message written in Latin. (Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

Ireland mourned the loss of its Nobel laureate poet, Seamus Heaney, with equal measures of poetry and pain Monday in a funeral full of grace notes and a final message from the great man himself: Don't be afraid.

Among those packing the pews of Dublin's Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart were were government leaders — from the Republic of Ireland as well as Northern Ireland; poets, playwrights and novelists; all four members of the rock band U2; the actor Stephen Rea; and Brian Keenan, an Irish national abducted while teaching in Beirut in the 1980s and held hostage for four years.

Ireland's foremost uilleann piper, Liam O'Flynn, played a wailing lament before family members and friends offered a string of readings from the Bible and their own often-lyrical remembrances of the country's most celebrated writer of the late 20th century.

Heaney won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995 in recognition of his wide-ranging writings inspired by the rural wonders of Ireland, the strife of his native Northern Ireland, the ancient cultures of Europe, of Catholic faith and Celtic mysticism, and the immutability of family ties. He died Friday in a Dublin hospital at the age of 74.

Muldoon recalls 'big-hearted celebrity'

A eulogy by poet Paul Muldoon went strong on humor-tinged anecdotes of Heaney's easygoing family life, "bouncy" charm and "big-hearted celebrity."

Muldoon recalled how Heaney, after being fitted with a pacemaker following his 2006 stroke, "took an almost unseemly delight in announcing: Blessed are the pacemakers." He described Heaney's greatest trait as simply "his beauty" as both a bard and human being.

An Irish publisher and fellow poet, Peter Fallon, offered a reading of "The Given Note," the only Heaney poem read aloud during the ceremony.

O'Flynn, who often collaborated with Heaney on the poet's audio-recorded readings of his works, then played "Port na bPucai," Gaelic for "The Fairies' Tune," a medieval song of myth and legend that inspired the same poem.

Heaney requested Brahms's Lullaby

The 90-minute service ended with a cellist's rendition of the childhood bedtime classic known as Brahms's Lullaby. Mourners hummed along with the tune; some could even be seen mouthing the words "lullaby and goodnight" as Heaney's sons and siblings carried the casket up the aisle. Heaney himself had requested the music be played at his funeral.

In a tribute delivered from the pulpit, one of Heaney's three children revealed his final words: a text message from his hospital bed to his wife, Marie.

Michael Heaney said the words, "written a few minutes before he passed away, were in his beloved Latin. And they read: 'Noli timere.' Don't be afraid." That revelation opened a ripple of tears in the audience, including from Marie and Heaney's only daughter, Catherine, in the front row beside the flower-topped coffin.

Outside, on a blustery but sunny day, hundreds of people spontaneously applauded as Heaney's casket emerged into the light on the shoulders of his sons, Michael and Christopher, and other relatives. Irish President Michael D. Higgins, himself a poet, embraced Heaney's widow.

Police escort to hometown of Bellaghy

One of the poets who read prayers at the service, Theo Dorgan, said lovers of poetry worldwide had expected Heaney to live much longer, given his strong mind and masculine vigor.

"A great oak has fallen. A lot of people sheltered in the amplitude of the leaf and light and shade of the oak that was Seamus. He expanded our idea of what poetry is and can be," Dorgan said in an interview.

Heaney's funeral cortege received a police escort on the long drive north to his family home in Bellaghy, a Northern Ireland village that was the fountainhead for much of his work. He was buried in the family plot in Bellaghy's cemetery.

Elsewhere Monday, thousands queued to sign books of condolence opened in Dublin, Belfast and the Northern Ireland city of Londonderry, where Heaney attended Catholic boarding school in the 1950s.

On Sunday, a crowd of 80,000 observed a minute's silence and applauded the memory of Heaney at a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Kerry.

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Fifty Shades film casts Dakota Johnson, Charlie Hunnam

U.S. actress Dakota Johnson will play the naive Anastasia Steele alongside English actor Charlie Hunnam as the manipulative Christian Grey in the film version of the erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey, its British author E.L. James said on Monday.

"The gorgeous and talented Charlie Hunnam will be Christian Grey in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey," James said on her website, before revealing Johnson's role.

Fifty Shades of Grey, about a passionate relationship between literature student Anastasia and the manipulative entrepreneur Christian, was first published in 2011 and became a cultural phenomenon as it rocketed up the bestseller lists.

Charlie Hunnam will play the 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey. (Chris Pizzello/Associated Press)

Described as "mummy porn" by critics, James's debut novel became Britain's fastest paperback to reach 1 million sales and was the first in a trilogy. Movie rights for the novels were bought up by Universal Pictures and Focus Features.

Johnson, 23, a fashion model and actress, is the daughter of Miami Vice actor Don Johnson and Working Girl star Melanie Griffith. Johnson is best known for films such as action comedy 21 Jump Street (2012) and romantic comedy The Five-Year Engagement (2O12).

The 33-year-old Hunnam's latest film was sci-fi epic Pacific Rim (2013), in which he played a robot pilot fighting alien monsters.

Fifty Shades will be directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and is due for release in 2014.

James, a former television executive whose real name is Erika Leonard, lives with her family in London.

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Animator Hayao Miyazaki retires at 72

Oscar-winning director Hayao Miyazaki's animation studio says The Wind Rises, in competition at the Venice Film Festival, will be his last film.

Koju Hoshino, president of Tokyo-based Studio Ghibli, announced Miyazaki's intention to retire Sunday, but declined to take questions, deferring to a news conference next week in the Japanese capital.

"He wants to say goodbye to all of you," he said.

Miyazaki was not in Venice for the international premiere of his movie. His Italian distributor said he stayed in Japan for the domestic release.

Miyazaki, 72, is one of animation's most-admired and successful directors. He won an Oscar for Spirited Away in 2003, and a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in 2005.

His films also include Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle.

The Wind Rises, Miyazaki's 11th feature film, is a fantasy-filled look at the man who designed Japan's Second World War fighter planes.

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What's the greatest book-to-film adaptation of all time?

Each September, the entertainment world turns its attention to the Toronto International Film Festival, one of the most prestigious and influential festivals of its kind. And just like last year, a new crop of literary adaptations is generating lots of big buzz, from the violent and gritty Child of God by American author Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) to Life of Crime by the late king of cool Elmore Leonard.

But let's take a step back and pay homage to the great literary adaptations of the past. We want you to toss us some suggestions in our form below. Nominate your favourite literary adaptation of all time. We'll compile the Top 10 adaptations and put it to an online vote. 

NOTE: In an effort to encourage a diverse array of suggestions, adaptations that are part of a franchise (i.e., any of the Harry Potter/Hunger Games/Lord of the Rings/Narnia/Bond films) will be considered as a nomination for the franchise as a whole, and not the individual work.

You have until Friday, Sept. 6, to enter your nomination. By entering, you'll have a chance to win a CBC Books tote bag! We have five to give away. CBC contest rules apply. The Top 10 will be revealed on Monday, Sept. 9!

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David Frost, veteran broadcaster, dies aboard cruise ship

Veteran British journalist and broadcaster David Frost, who won fame around the world for his TV interviews with former U.S. president Richard Nixon, has died, his family told the BBC. He was 74.

Frost died of a suspected heart attack on Saturday night aboard the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship, where he was due to give a speech, the family said. The cruise company Cunard said its vessel left the English port of Southampton on Saturday for a 10-day cruise in the Mediterranean.

Known both for an amiable personality and incisive interviews with leading public figures, Frost's career in television news and entertainment spanned almost half a century. He was the only person to have interviewed all six British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2007 and the seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2008. Outside world affairs, his roster ranged from Orson Welles to Muhammad Ali to Clint Eastwood.

Prime Minister David Cameron was quick to send his condolences, praising Frost for being an "extraordinary man with charm, wit, talent, intelligence and warmth in equal measure."

"The Nixon interviews were among the great broadcast moments — but there were many other brilliant interviews," Cameron said. "He could be — and certainly was with me — both a friend and a fearsome interviewer."

The BBC said it received a statement from Frost's family saying it was devastated and asking "for privacy at this difficult time."

Frost began television hosting while still a student at Cambridge University. He went on to host the BBC's satirical news show That Was The Week That Was in the early 1960s, and, later, a sketch show called The Frost Report and a long-running BBC Sunday show, Breakfast with Frost. His signature, "Hello, good evening and welcome" was often mimicked.

'Off-the-cuff' Nixon interview

While popular in Britain and beginning to launch a career on U.S. television, Frost did not become internationally known until 1977, when he secured a series of television interviews with Nixon.

The dramatic face-to-face was make-or-break both for him and for the ex-president, who was trying to salvage his reputation after resigning from the White House in disgrace following the Watergate scandal three years earlier. At the time, it was the most widely watched news interview in the history of TV.

The interviewer and his subject sparred through the first part of the interview, but Frost later said he realized he didn't have what he wanted as it wound down.

Nixon had acknowledged mistakes, but Frost pressed him on whether that was enough. Americans, he said, wanted to hear him own up to wrongdoing and acknowledge abuse of power — and "unless you say it, you're going to be haunted for the rest of your life."

"That was totally off-the-cuff," Frost later said. "That was totally ad-lib. In fact, I threw my clipboard down just to indicate that it was not prepared in any way.... I just knew at that moment that Richard Nixon was more vulnerable than he'd ever be in his life. And I knew I had to get it right."

After more pressing, Nixon relented. "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life," he said.

The dramatic face-off went on to spawn a hit play. And in 2008, a new generation was introduced to Frost's work with the Oscar-nominated movie Frost/Nixon, starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon.

Frost was born on Apr. 7, 1939, the son of a Methodist preacher. Besides hosting, he set up his own company, which gave birth to many more popular British programs.

Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC for 12 years until 2005, and the game show Through the Keyhole from 1987 to 2008. He had recently been working for Al Jazeera International.

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'Big year' for First Nations films at TIFF

Jeff Barnaby caught the filmmaking bug back in the early 1980s, when acclaimed aboriginal documentary director Alanis Obomsawin fixed her lens on a controversial Quebec police raid over salmon fishing rights on his Mi'gmaq reserve in Listuguj, Que.

"Alanis is the reason that I'm a filmmaker," the 37-year-old said in a recent interview. "I think her doing a kind of politically charged film (Incident at Restigouche) about my reserve really kicked off my film career in my brain."

Barnaby will get to share the spotlight with his 81-year-old movie-making icon when the two screen their features at the Toronto International Film Festival.

On Sept. 9, Barnaby will unveil the world premiere of his debut feature, Rhymes for Young Ghouls, which he wrote and directed. The irreverent drama is set against the backdrop of residential schools in the 1970s as it follows an aboriginal teen (Kawennahere Devery Jacobs) who exacts revenge on a sadistic Indian Agent.

Meanwhile, Obomsawin's doc, Hi-Ho Mistahey!, will make its world premiere this Saturday with a look at the plight of the Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario and the lack of funding for the education of children in First Nations communities.

Film an important presence on native reserves

Between those two features and the Peter Stebbings-directed drama Empire of Dirt, which debuts at the fest on Friday, "it turned out to be a really big year for First Nations films," says Canadian features programmer Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo.

Barnaby predicts the trend will continue.

"I think there's a huge fascination with film on any native reserve, because there's so little to do there, and nine times out of 10 what you're doing is kind of occupying your time going to the movies or playing video games," he said. "So, I think the medium really has a presence in native reserves, particularly because there are so many films out there with native people in them.

"So, I think you're going to start seeing a bit more native filmmakers coming out of the woodwork."

Obomsawin agrees.

"I think more and more, a lot of people and a lot of young people are into this business and there's a lot of interest, and more and more professional people are becoming professional filmmakers," she said in a telephone interview. "So, it's very encouraging."

Departure from 'hyper-masculine' stories

Barnaby said he embarked on Rhymes for Young Ghouls because he wanted to deviate from the "hyper-masculine" stories he's tackled in the past with his three short films, which include the Genie-nominated File Under Miscellaneous.

Using the "strong, hard-headed" women in his life as inspiration, he placed his heroine "in a place and time where it wasn't very popular to be a woman or to be native."

Fifteen-year-old Aila (Jacobs) lives on the Red Crow Mi'gMaq reservation and helps her uncle run the drug business abandoned by her father when he went to jail.

Aila's pot dealings have made her enough money to pay corrupt Indian Agent Popper (Mark Antony Krupa) her "truancy tax" so she can avoid attending residential school. But her fate changes when her money is stolen and her dad (Glen Gould) gets out of jail.

Barnaby, who is also an author and artist, shot the film in Montreal last fall and set the story from1969 to 1976 because "that's when you start seeing the collapse of the residential school system."

The subject matter is still topical "because families that experienced the aftermath of what happened there are still being directly affected," he added.

Barnaby should know — his grandmother was in a residential school, as was one of his cast members.

Not a political film

Jacobs, who's a Native American Mohawk, also has family members who went to residential school.

The 20-year-old said when she read the script, she "knew it was going to be something that was a game-changer that most Canadians wouldn't be expecting."

"I think a lot of people who go to see the film are going to be shocked by it."

But despite the shocking elements, Barnaby insisted it's not a political film.

"I think the film is political insofar that it has natives in it, but it's not something I deliberately set out to do," he said. "There is no pulpit-dumping, once-we-were-warriors speeches or anything like that. It's just a story that just so happens to have a little bit of political ideology and edge to it. But by and large, it's a story first, a very cinematic story, borderline exploitation film.

"I think everybody's going to kind of get blown away by it, to be honest. I don't think they're going to realize what they're sitting down to see."

Perhaps one of the most surprising elements for audiences will be the humour that's sprinkled throughout the characters' trying circumstances.

"I think one thing that doesn't come across in a lot of native films is this idea that the native people as a whole have an insane sense of humour," said Barnaby. "So, there are quite a lot of things in there that are inappropriately funny and shouldn't be laughed at, but we'll laugh at them because, you know, we're native."

"That's how you cope with things," said Jacobs. "You laugh at inappropriate things and you just make light of it."

Undoing damage of past cinema

Obomsawin called Barnaby a "very special" and talented filmmaker who brings different ideas to the big screen.

"He has stories sometimes that are difficult to look at, but I think it's very exciting to see that he's managed to do what he's done so far," she said.

Barnaby said he hopes his film will have the same impact Obomsawin's doc did on him when he was young.

"In that there will be some young kid out there watching TMN (The Movie Network) one day and then see my movie and say that they can do that and make a difference to some other kid 20 years from now.

"I think in a really crazy way, native films are undoing a lot of the damage that the films that came before did, in giving native people an identity onscreen."

The Toronto film fest runs Sept. 5 to 15.

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TIFF QUIZ: Test your knowledge of the annual film frenzy

Every fall, packs of critics mingle with devoted cinephiles at the Toronto International Film Festival. Red carpets are unfurled for celebrity strutting.

Over the past 37 years, the small but ambitious festival has continued to grow and attract more and more moviegoers to the city.

Think you know TIFF? Test your trivia knowledge with our quiz below.

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Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize-winning poet, dies

To all lovers of the perfectly weighed word, Seamus Heaney offered hope on this side of the grave.

Heaney, 74, died Friday in a Dublin hospital some 18 years after he won the Nobel Prize in literature and gained global recognition as Ireland's greatest poet since William Butler Yeats.

He left behind a half-century's body of work that sought to capture the essence of his experience: the sour smells and barren beauty of Irish landscapes, the haunting loss of loved ones and of memory itself, and the tormented soul of his native Northern Ireland.

As one of the world's premier classicists, he translated and interpreted ancient works of Athens and Rome for modern eyes and ears. A bear of a man with a signature mop of untamed silvery hair, he gave other writers and fans time, attention, advice – and left a legacy of one-on-one, life-changing moments encouraged by his self-deprecating, common-man touch.

"He was a wonderful nature poet, a love poet, and a war poet. He certainly addressed the darkness of what we call 'the troubles'," said Michael Longley, a Belfast poet and longtime Heaney confidant, who recalled chatting happily with Heaney over whiskey and pints of beer earlier this month at a western Irish literary festival.

"I told him I'd been re-reading his early works from the 1960s, and I just couldn't believe that as a young man he was capable of writing such miracles. He continued to write miracles throughout his life," Longley said. "He was a poet of extraordinary complexity and profundity, so it's surprising and remarkable that he also could be so popular ... It's not popular poetry. Seamus made it popular."

The Cure at Troy

His most quoted lines came from The Cure at Troy, a 1991 adaptation of a Greek play by Sophocles set in the Trojan War. His version, rooted in a Northern Ireland that he hoped could reach "the far side of revenge," sought to draw a line under a conflict that featured Irish Republican Army hunger strikes and the IRA killing of hundreds of police officers.

"A hunger-striker's father

stands in the graveyard dumb.

The police widow in veils

faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don't hope

on this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

the longed for tidal wave

of justice can rise up,

and hope and history rhyme."

Scores of world leaders have borrowed those lines for their peacemaking proclamations.

John Hume, a Northern Ireland leader of the Irish nationalist side who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998, said Heaney's work offered "a special channel for repudiating violence, injustice and prejudice, and urging us all to the better side of our human nature."

Clintons offer praise

Bill and Hillary Clinton, who met Heaney during their several visits to Northern Ireland in the 1990s, and mined The Cure at Troy to close speeches, praised him as "more than a brilliant artist."

A photo dated May 1, 1970 of Seamus Heaney. (File photo/Associated Press)

"His mind, heart, and his uniquely Irish gift for language made him our finest poet of the rhythms of ordinary lives and a powerful voice for peace. And he was a good and true friend. We loved him and we will miss him," the Clintons said in a statement.

Heaney rarely turned down requests to speak, and kept globe-trotting to university lectures and cultural seminars, despite a 2006 stroke that forced him, temporarily, to slow down. Audiences sought to hear his readings in person, delivered in his melodic baritone. He inspired respect and love.

"We cannot adequately express our profound sorrow at the loss of one of the world's greatest writers," said Heaney's London publisher, Faber & Faber. "His impact on literary culture is immeasurable. As his publisher we could not have been prouder to publish his poetry over nearly 50 years. He was nothing short of an inspiration to the company, and his friendship over many years is a great loss."

Commentary on Northern Ireland conflict

The eldest of nine children from a farming village, Heaney went to Catholic boarding school in Northern Ireland's second-largest city, Londonderry, a bitterly divided community that soon became the crucible of "the troubles," the quaint local euphemism for a four-decade conflict over the British territory that has claimed more than 3,700 lives.

His early work was rooted in vivid description of rural experience, such as in 1966's collection Death of a Naturalist, when his poem Digging describes his father's labor cutting turf bricks from a bog – and concludes with his own decision to work with a pen, not a shovel.

As Northern Ireland's sectarian divisions exploded into civil war in the early 1970s, Heaney's writing grew more sociological and political as he dug into the slippery psychology of his homeland.

In 1972, the most deadly year of Northern Ireland's conflict, Heaney left his academic post in Queen's University in Belfast to settle in the Republic of Ireland. That year, he published Wintering Out, a collection of poems that offered only oblique references to the bloodshed.

His follow-up 1975 collection, North, offered much more direct commentary on the conflict. His poem Whatever You Say, Say Nothing became a Northern Ireland catch phrase for the art of concealing one's loyalty – whether Irish Catholic "Pape" or British Protestant "Prod" – in response to strangers' probing questions.

Won Nobel Prize in literature

Heaney was the fourth Irishman to win the Nobel Prize in literature, joining Yeats, Samuel Beckett and George Bernard Shaw.

Heaney's focus on the approaching inevitability of death was evident in his final collection of poems, Human Chain, published in 2010. One stanza reflected on the recent death of a longtime friend:

"The door was open and the house was dark

Wherefore I called his name, although I knew

The answer this time would be silence."

In 2011, he donated the files of his life's work to the National Library of Ireland, including all written and typed manuscripts and revisions from 1963 to 2010, his scripts of university lectures, and his myriad projects translating the work of non-English poets from ancient Greece to modern Poland.

And in one of his final public appearances this month at an event celebrating Yeats, he initially described Human Chain as "my last book" – then, with a wry chuckle, switched his words to "my latest collection." While hundreds had brought copies of his works seeking his signature, he unusually declined.

Heaney is survived by his wife, Marie, and children Christopher, Michael and Catherine. Funeral arrangements were not announced.

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