Seamus Heaney – New Selected Poems (1966-1987)
Poetry - paperback with many scribbles bought from the Beardie's Barbican Bookshop sometime in 2008 for £3
- 4 nods out of 5 -
‘Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun’
And so begins this wonderful collection of the most memorable of Seamus Heaney’s poems. The collection spans from his beginning in the 1960s, through more expansive works of the 1970s, through to his much applauded The Haw Lantern in 1987. The poet remains one of Britain’s best selling poets – though perhaps Heaney himself would prefer to label himself as purely Irish.
Heaney’s Northern Irish childhood figures heavily in his earlier works, with the farming of his family taking particular emphasis. His father figures heavily, notably in Follower: ‘I was a nuisance, tripping and falling / Yapping always. But today / It is my father who keeps stumbling / Behind me, and will not go away’). There is the illustrative, picturesque words of nature in Blackberry-Picking, Death of a Naturalist and Bogland. Whilst the poem about the death of his four-year old brother - Mid-Term Break – remains evocative, heartbreaking and popular with today’s readers.
Later works concentrate on Irish-British relations, such as in Whatever You Say Say Nothing. But it is to Heaney’s credit he can concentrate on such troubling, serious matters as well as on nature and personal feelings. The collection also features the many poems centring on Sweeney, as well as the epic Station Island.
It is to the book-ends in which the Worm finds most satisfaction, to the natural leanings of the beginning to the final, diverse and obscure collection The Haw Lantern, in particular the poem Terminus. Although the vastness of the collection means there are plenty of dips and peaks, altogether the book shows why Heaney is one of the greatest poets living today, and why such a collection should proudly be shown upon any bookcase.
