Seamus Heaney has finally laid claim to one of the few poetry titles thus far to elude him. It was announced this evening that the Nobel laureate has won the 2006 TS Eliot prize with his latest collection, District and Circle.

There are miners still
In the underground rivers
Of West Moor and Palmersville.

Seamus Heaney published his first collection when he was 27, he won the Nobel Prize when he was 56 and his 12th book of poetry came out this spring. He talks to James Campbell about growing up on a farm in County Derry, politics and his current project, inspired by a 15th-century Scots poet.