I was with Seamus Heaney on my first visit to Washington just over 30 years ago and it really was something to write home about. But I never did, until now. I felt my reportage of that inaugural trip would end up mocking the generosity of the people who allowed me to join them. If I had a reputation back then, it was for my breathless reporting of tabloid scandals. So, a blow-by-blow account of my new-found artsy pals’ doing their “party piece” turn for fundraising would be low-brow ridicule of an ambitious literary project they were travelling to the…

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