New Releases by Seamus Heaney

This definitive collection of Seamus Heaney''s poetry, published in a single volume for the first time, gives us the full arc of the Nobel laureate''s long and varied career. Seamus Heaney''s voice is like no other—"by turns mythological and journalistic, rural and sophisticated, reminiscent and impatient, stern and yielding, curt and expansive" (Helen Vendler, The New Yorker). Published in a single volume for the first time, the collected poems of Heaney is a testament to that unforgettable voice, and to the breadth and beauty of the Nobel laureate''s long and brilliant career, from his first book, Death of a Naturalist (1966), to poems written for Human Chain (2010), his twelfth and final book.

Door into the Dark, Seamus Heaney''s second collection of poems, first appeared in 1969. Already his widely celebrated gifts of precision, thoughtfulness, and musicality were everywhere apparent.

The letters provide us with an intimate, multilayered understanding of this extraordinary poet’s life and mind. Every now and again I need to get down here, to get into the Diogenes tub, as it were, or the Colmcille beehive hut, or the Mossbawn scullery. At any rate, a hedge surrounds me, the blackbird calls, the soul settles for an hour or two. In this astute selection from Seamus Heaney’s vast correspondence, we are given direct access to the life and poetic development of a literary titan, from his early days in Belfast, through his controversial decision to settle in the Republic, to the gradual broadening of horizons that culminated in the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature and the years of international eminence that kept him heroically busy until his death. Christopher Reid draws from both public and private archives to reveal this remarkable story in the poet’s own words. Generous, funny, exuberant, confiding, irreverent, empathetic, and deeply thoughtful, The Letters of Seamus Heaney encompasses decades-long relationships with friends and colleagues, as well as an unstinted responsiveness to passing acquaintances. Heaney’s mastery of language is as evident here as it is in any of his writings; listening to his voice we find ourselves in the same room as a man whose presence enriched the world and whose legacy deepens our sense of what truly matters.

The complete translations of the poet Seamus Heaney, a Nobel laureate and prolific, revolutionary translator. Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, published in 1999, was immediately hailed as an undisputed masterpiece, “something imperishable and great” (James Wood, The Guardian). A few years after his death in 2013, his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid Book VI caused a similar stir, providing “a remarkable and fitting epilogue to one of the great poetic careers of recent times” (Nick Laird, Harper’s Magazine). Now, for the first time, the poet, critic, and essayist’s translations are gathered in one volume. Heaney translated not only classic works of Latin and Old English but also a great number of poems from Spanish, Romanian, Dutch, Russian, German, Scottish Gaelic, Czech, Ancient and Modern Greek, Middle and Modern French, and Medieval and Modern Italian, among other languages. In particular, the Nobel laureate engaged with works in Old, Middle, and Modern Irish, the languages of his homeland and early education. As he said, “If you lived in the Irish countryside as I did in my childhood, you lived in a primal Gaeltacht.” In The Translations of Seamus Heaney, Marco Sonzogni has collected Heaney’s translations and framed them with the poet’s own writings on his works and their composition, sourced from introductions, interviews, and commentaries. Through this volume, we come closer to grasping the true extent of Heaney’s extraordinary abilities and his genius.

In 2013, Seamus Heaney met with Faber poetry editor Matthew Hollis in Dublin. He said that one project he would very much like to complete would be to prepare a personal selection from across the entire arc of his poetry, small yet comprehensive enough to serve as an introduction for all comers. He never managed to make the selection in his lifetime, and after his passing, the project was initially set aside. But now, at last, it has been returned to once more, and the result is an intimate gathering of poems chosen and introduced by the Heaney family. Coinciding with the opening by the National Library of Ireland of a permanent exhibition dedicated to the life and work of Seamus Heaney, this is a singular, accessible selection for new and younger readers that has the opportunity to reach far and wide, now and ahead.

A new edition of the later selected work of a Nobel Prize-winning poet Often considered to be "the greatest poet of our age" ( The Guardian), Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." He saw poetry as a vocation and credited it with "the power to persuade the vulnerable part of our consciousness of its rightness in spite of the evidence of wrongness all around it, the power to remind us that we are hunters and gatherers of values." Paul Muldoon wrote that Heaney was "the only poet I can think of who was recognized worldwide as having moral as well as literary authority." Shortly before his death in 2013, Seamus Heaney began to compile Selected Poems 1988–2013, and although he was unable to complete the project, his choices have been followed here. This volume encapsulates the finest work from Seeing Things (1991) with its lines of loss and revelation; The Spirit Level (1996) where we experience "the poem as ploughshare that turns time / Up and over."; the landmark translation of Beowulf (1999); Electric Light (2001), a book of origins and oracles; and his final collections, District and Circle (2006) and Human Chain (2010), which limn the interconnectedness of being, our lifelines to our inherited past.

Death of a Naturalist (1966) marked the auspicious debut of Seamus Heaney, a universally acclaimed master of modern literature. As a first book of poems, it is remarkable for its accurate perceptions and rich linguistic gifts.

The title poem of this collection, set on an Irish island, tells of a pilgrim on an inner journey that leads him back into the world that formed him, and then forward to face the crises of the present. Writing in The Washington Post Book World, Hugh Kenner called the narrative sequence in Seamus Heaney''s Station Island "as fine a long poem as we''ve had in fifty years."

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 Seamus Heaney''s late father.

A Cycle of Love Songs Translated by the Nobel Laureate "Dappled woodland light, Spring well chill and bright, Eyes like stars at night, Open knees so white. Four things death itself won''t cover, Unforgettable forever." In 1917, while reading his local newspaper, the Czech composer Leos Janacek discovered the poems that he was to set to music in his song cycle Diary of One Who Vanished. Written by Ozef Kalda and published anonymously, they tell the story of a farmer''s boy who abandons his home because he has fallen in love with a Gypsy. These new English versions by Seamus Heaney were commissioned by the English National Opera for a series of international performances, which opened in Dublin in October 1999.

''Seamus Heaney has gone beyond the themes of his earlier poetry and has made the giant step towards the most ambitious, most intractable themes of maturity. The power of this book comes from a sense that he is reaching out towards a type of desolation and of isolation without which no imagination can be seen to have grown up.'' Eavan Boland, Irish Times ''Keyed and pitched unlike any other significant poet at work in the language anywhere.'' Harold Bloom, Times Literary Supplement

Heaney''s new collection of poetry maintains his trust in the implacableness of workaday realities and the mystery of everyday renewals.

" Ni d''ici, ni de là-bas, tu es Une hâte par où passent l''étrange et le connu Quand de douces rafales agitent la voiture, Prennent le cœur à l''improviste, le font éclater. " Poèmes 1966-1984, publié aux Éditions Gallimard en 1988, réunit des poèmes extraits de six recueils : Death of a Naturalist (1966), Door into the Dark (1969), Wintering Out (1972), North (1979), Field Work (1979) et Station Island (1984). L''étrange et le connu, qui a reçu le prix Whitbread Book of the Year en 1996, paraît en même temps que La lucarne.

In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to some of the greatest poets in our literature. W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) was born in Dublin, and was educated in Ireland and England. He was instrumental in the development of a national Irish theatre - and in particular, the founding of the Abbey Theatre. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

A collection of poems by Nobel Prize-winning author Seamus Heaney, based on the theme of origins and oracles.

Fascinated by great, untouched landscapes, Jan Hendrix has traveled the world, from Spain and Mexico to Australia and the Netherlands, confronting and being confronted by primeval forces that, at once overwhelming and mysterious, constitute the very essence of existence. During his travels, Hendrix has regularly captured the landscape with a Polaroid camera, transforming these immediate images through dissection and reduction into essential, abstract shapes, which he uses in his silkscreens. In Travel Diary, the artist presents ten years of his drawings of nature the world over, alongside maps of the places he''s been. Specific subjects are the natural elements found in each place, whether trees, leaves, rocks, or rivers. Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney writes an accompanying text.

"Each of the translations in this book can be read for its own sake or as part of a triptych. By setting excerpts of Brian Merriman''s Cuirt an Mhean Oiche within the acoustic of a classical myth (the story of Orpheus and Eurydice), Seamus Heaney provides a new and illuminating context for the eighteenth century Irish poem. For this paperback reissue, the poet has made some revisions in the text of the original Gallery Press edition."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Collection of poems by the 1995 Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet.

Inspired by Seaaemus Heaney''s poems, and notably by the mediaeval Irish saga Buile Suibhne, the photographer Rachel Giese has produced a portfolio of pictures of the northern Irish landscape, covering the boundaries of Mad Sweeney''s original kingdom of Dal-Arie. She has recently followed the clues to topography and the natural world in Sweeney''s wanderings, and gathered together 40 photographs which Seamus Heaney has matched with extracts and quotations from his book Sweeney Astray. The whole of the text for Sweeney Astray is printed in the second section of this book.