Seeing Things [Paperback]

Seamus Heaney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1993

Seeing Things (1991), as Edward Hirsch wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "is a book of thresholds and crossings, of losses balanced by marvels, of casting and gathering and the hushed, contrary air between water and sky, earth and heaven." Along with translations from the Aeneid and the Inferno, this book offers several poems about Heaney's late father.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Suggestively framed by the poet's translations of excerpts from the Aeneid and the Inferno , this collection combines Heaney's richly textured style with visionary intent: the desire to invoke his dead father. Just as Aeneas begs for one meeting with his dear father, so does Heaney (Selected Poems 1966 - 1987) , and much of the book records those glimpses. In the title poem he recollects "That afternoon / I saw him face to face, he came to me / With his damp footprints out of the river, / And there was nothing between us there / That might not still be happily ever after."18 Heaney's spiritual excursions, reminiscent of Dante's, to the ghostly past and underworld will remind readers of the difficulties of voyages of the soul: "So draw no attention, steer and concentrate / On the space that flees between like a speeded-up / Meltdown of souls from the straw-flecked ice of hell."84 Although readers may sometimes get lost in the windings of the otherworld so vigorously evoked, most will judge the journey well worth the effort.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

With the shades of his father, Dante, Virgil, Yeats, and Larkin flickering at his side, Heaney embarks on a midlife journey into the interior. So tactile are his words, however, that the tagalong reader feels the sights as much as sees them, registers the "Body's deep obedience/ To all its shifting tenses." If the territory encompasses the ruts and pinnacles of Heaney's imagination, it also winds through half-century old memories where "cattle stood/ Jostling and skittering near the hedge." What centers the poet's amalgam of personal and literary past, spiritual aspiration, and love of the rough Irish earth is a language mined from the "ore of longing," one that bruises, elevates, and ultimately transcends. Among living poets, Heaney is one of the very few who dares blend his voice with the chorus of Immortals, and one of the fewer still who earns the honor. Highly recommended for academic libraries and for public libraries with strong poetry collections.
- Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, N.Y.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (April 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374523894
• ISBN-13: 978-0374523893
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #917,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic, deserving of the Nobel Prize!, October 3, 2000

By 

Lisa Shea "medieval swordfighting enthusiast" - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Seeing Things (Paperback)

Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, in large part because of this book. The poetry isn't archaic or highbrow or needing 80 pages of notes to understand. It's written comfortably and easily, about simple things from his childhood and life.

I bought this to take on a trip to Ireland, and it was fantastic reading it while walking the green meadows and rocky coastline. It breathes Irish air. If you have a love for the misty grasses, or simply enjoy rural, quiet life, read through these poems.

The poems talk of birth, and love, and death, of heather bells and boats in docks. Give them a try, and be swept away in their gentle language.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A formidable achievement, July 25, 2002

By 

dylanissimus "dylanissimus" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seeing Things (Paperback)

Perhaps this book represents Heaney's finest poetry since 'Field Work.' It contains the magnificent sequence 'Squarings,' and a continuation of his Glanmore sonnets. The craftsmanship impeccable, the voice down-to-earth.

We remember especially his sonnet on Lent in which the poet deals with 'A fasted will marauding through the body,' and the poem "Wheels within Wheels," where a child spins the pedals of an inverted bicycle and notes "The way the space between the hub and rim / Hummed with transparency." Note the unobtrusive assonances, & the exact right words.

In one of the twelve-line poems of 'Squarings', Heaney counsels himself and other poets: 'Do not waver / Into language. Do not waver in it.' In this sequence, it is Heaney's happy accomplishment to have heeded that counsel in an exemplary fashion. Driving through an avenue or tunnel of trees, arching over a quarter-mile stretch of country road, Heaney sees the trees as 'Calligraphic shocks / Bushed and tufted in prevailing winds.' Could Thomas Hardy or Wallace Stevens have done as well?

Talking about it isn't good enough,

But quoting from it at least demonstrates

The virtue of an art that knows its mind.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In Honor Of St Patrick's Day..., March 18, 2002

By 

Erren (San Francisco, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seeing Things (Paperback)

i thought i'd read a irish writer. i couldn't think of a better choice than heaney. the poems here are subtle, but infinitely brilliant. i love the way he uses mythology in some of the pieces, taking references from dante and homer. he draws from his family life, childhood, and his lifelong experiences to create poems that are wondrous in form and content.