Station Island [Paperback]

Seamus Heaney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1986

The title poem from this collection is set on an island that has been a site of pilgrimage in Ireland for over a thousand years. A narrative sequence, it is an autobiographical quest concerned with 'the growth of a poet’s mind'. The long poem is preceded by a section of shorter lyrics and leads into a third group of poems in which the poet’s voice is at one with the voice of the legendary mad King Sweeney.'Surpasses even what one might reasonably expect from this magnificently gifted poet.' John Carey, Sunday Times

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Heaney (Field Work and Preoccupations) draws on the culture of his native Ireland for this collection. Included are short lyrical verses, a long poem in which Heaney confronts ghosts from his past, and a piece about seventh century Ulster King Sweeney. PW called the book "striking." December
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

An Aisling In The Burren
Alerted
An Artist
Away From It All
A Bat On The Road
The Birthplace
Changes
Chekhov On Sakhalin
The Cleric
Drifting Off
The First Flight
The First Gloss
The First Kingdom
A Hazel Stick For Catherine Ann
The Hermit
Holly
In Illo Tempore
In The Beech
In The Chestnut Tree
The King Of The Ditchbacks
A Kite For Michael And Christopher
La Toilette
Last Look; In Memoriam E.g.
The Loaning
Making Strange
The Master
A Migration
The Old Icons
On The Road
The Railway Children
Remembering Malibu
The Sandpit: 1. 1946
The Sandpit: 2. The Demobbed Bricklayer
The Sandpit: 3. The Sand Boom
The Sandpit: 4. What The Brick Keeps
Sandstone Keepsake
The Scribes
Sheelagh Na Gig; At Kilpeck
Shelf Life: 1. Ganite Chip
Shelf Life: 2. Old Smoothing Iron
Shelf Life: 3. Old Pewter
Shelf Life: 4. Iron Spike
Shelf Life: 5. Stone From Delphi
Shelf Life: 6. A Snowshoe
Sloe Gin
Station Island
Sweeney Redivivus
Sweeney's Returns
Sweetpea
An Ulster Twilight
The Underground
Unwinding
A Waking Dream
Widgeon
Poem
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 124 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (January 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374519358
• ISBN-13: 978-0374519353
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #459,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dante's Student, June 12, 2005

By 

Hansel (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Station Island (Paperback)

"Station Island" is a series of 12 poems in the second section of the book. It follows Dante's meeting with different shades in The Divine Comedy. Heaney himself claims to be deeply influenced by Dante, and it is a Dante through TS Eliot. Although unlike TS Eliot who increasingly become religious in his work (partly due to what Dante claimed in the Divine Comedy that writing needs a transcendence and it must come from god), Heaney rejects religion as a form of transcendence.

The book must be taken as a whole and as a whole, Heaney wishes, for the first time in his career, to shake off his past literary influences and Irish writers such as James Joyce (who wrote Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Patrick Kavanagh, and William Caleton. It is also the first time that he wishes to explain his political apathy despite his success as a poet through remarkable poems like Chekhov on Sakhalin, section VIII of "Station Island". The poems are incisive and unapologetic, like the shade of James Joyce telling Heaney to "Let go, Let fly."

However, after rejecting religion, politics and his literary past in the sequence of poems, Heaney cannot provide an answer what and why he is writing for because:

"There a drinking deer
...
at a dried-up source."

The deer of poetry has met a drought of a pool of dried-up ink. If only he could provide a kind of transcendence then this book would have been perfect.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heaney at his best, April 8, 2000

By 

"mjk32" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Station Island (Paperback)

This is still Heaney's best book of poetry to date. Centered around his 12 canto "Station Island," a poignant and disturbing 'portrait of the artist,' Station Island marked the transition in Heaney's career into the mature artist and greatest poet writing in English that we know today. A classic book of verse, written with lyrical precision and emotional power.

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The master at his finest, January 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Station Island (Paperback)

The title poem in this collection is one of the masterpieces of our day