Seamus Heaney: Selected Poems, 1966-1987 [Paperback]

Seamus Heaney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1991

This critically-acclaimed body of work brings together roughly 100 poems culled by Seamus Heaney from nine of his collections. "It is a retrospective event, by definition selective, but also full-bodied and useful."--Edward Hirsch, Boston Globe.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Seamus Heaney was the winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize, and this collection reveals the range, sureness, and quality of his achievements. Includes the complete and revised version of his long poem, "Station Island," as well as a number of prose poems previously unpublished in the U.S. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Heaney's tenth book offers an ample selection of some of the best work by one of our finest contemporary poets. The collection emphasizes his recent efforts, although it does not include any new poems. Readers will savor the author's rich Irish-English vocabulary, the sinuous power of his line, and his distinctive music. In the most satisfying poems Heaney's method is that of his emblematic sculptor, "hankering after stone/ That connived with the chisel, as if the grain/Remembered what the mallet tapped to know." His tender but unblinking observations of the people, land, and history of Ireland find there themes and symbols of universal application. Recommended for most libraries.
- Frank Lepkowski, Oakland Univ., Rochester, Mich.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Noonday Press; 1st edition (December 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374522804
• ISBN-13: 978-0374522803
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,011,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, June 26, 2006

By 

Anthony Johnson (Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seamus Heaney: Selected Poems, 1966-1987 (Paperback)

Seamus Heaney is an Irish treasure in literature. His works display the "concrete reality" that he aimed for in his poetry. My favorite poem is "Digging". He is talented in fusing agric./pol./soc./religion themes together in one poem.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good portrait of Heaney's development, March 26, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seamus Heaney: Selected Poems, 1966-1987 (Paperback)

Heaney's "Selected Poems" shows a good picture of the poet's development up to "Station Island" and the sonnets of Glanmore and Clearances. Like Yeats, Heaney had to go through a few volumes before he "became good": except for "The Tolland Man," the poems selected from his first four collections are flat, even the much-anthologized "Digging," which perseveres in anthologies only because it illustrates Heaney's overall philosophy. With the bog poems from "North," Heaney comes into his own, and he has managed to remain at this consistent level of excellence since then.