POETRY & DRAMA NEW & SELECTED
I had to to separate my new books into categories of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. It’s a good problem to have — too many good books to feature. I am going to be discriminating and probably slow to work on the poetry page. I have a large poetry section in the store, but I have not considered most of it for listing before. Look forward to a steady and deliberate listing of a wide variety of poetry and lyrics books in the days to come.
Letters of Seamus Heaney
Letters of Seamus Heaney
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.