New Releases by 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.

''A huge book, an immense book. Such adventure and variety, such industry, such subjugation of self.'' Michael Hofmann, TLS Heaney not only translated classic works of Latin and Old English but also poems from a great number of ancient and modern European languages, not least translations from the Old, Middle and Modern Irish of his homeland. The breadth and depth in evidence here is extraordinary -- from monastic hymns and prayers, to the civic and familial tragedies of Sophocles and Kochanowski; from Virgil and Dante''s living underworld to the stark landscapes of Sweeney''s Ireland. As editor, Marco Songzogni frames the translations with the poet''s own writings on his works. Collectively these bring us closer to an understanding of the genius for interpretation and transformation that distinguished Heaney as one of the great poet-translators of all time. ''The Translations . . . is a landmark volume, a striking testament to the particular and generous genius of Seamus Heaney. . . The crucial part played by translation in the formation and development of his extraordinary talent is under the spotlight as readers are further gifted with Marco Sonzogni''s meticulously detailed notes. . ..'' Martina Evans, Irish Times ''...this volume is handsome testimony to Heaney''s lifelong service to a noble art.'' David Wheatley, Guardian ''This magnificent book. . . is without a doubt a compendium to be cherished, and to be celebrated.'' Paul Perry, Sunday Independent

Selected poems from a Nobel laureate In 100 Poems, readers will enjoy the most loved and celebrated poems, and will discover new favorites, from "The Cure at Troy" to "Death of a Naturalist." It is a singular and welcoming anthology, reaching far and wide, for now and for years to come. Seamus Heaney had the idea to make a personal selection of poems from across the entire arc of his writing life, a collection small yet comprehensive enough to serve as an introduction for all comers. He never managed to do this himself, but now, finally, the project has been returned to, resulting in an intimate gathering of poems chosen and introduced by the Heaney family. No other selection of Heaney’s poems exists that has such a broad range, drawing from the first to the last of his prizewinning collections.

A masterpiece from one of the greatest poets of the century In a momentous publication, Seamus Heaney''s translation of Book VI of the Aeneid, Virgil''s epic poem composed sometime between 29 and 19 BC, follows the hero, Aeneas, on his descent into the underworld. In Stepping Stones, a book of interviews conducted by Dennis O''Driscoll, Heaney acknowledged the significance of the poem to his writing, noting that "there''s one Virgilian journey that has indeed been a constant presence, and that is Aeneas''s venture into the underworld. The motifs in Book VI have been in my head for years--the golden bough, Charon''s barge, the quest to meet the shade of the father." In this new translation, Heaney employs the same deft handling of the original combined with the immediacy of language and sophisticated poetic voice as was on show in his translation of Beowulf, a reimagining which, in the words of James Wood, "created something imperishable and great that is stainless--stainless, because its force as poetry makes it untouchable by the claw of literalism: it lives singly, as an English language poem."

New Selected Poems 1988-2013 offers the poems that Heaney himself selected from his collections Seeing Things, The Spirit Level, Beowulf, Electric Light, District and Circle and Human Chain.

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 Cure at Troy is Seamus Heaney''s version of Sophocles'' Philoctetes. Written in the fifth century BC, this play concerns the predicament of the outcast hero, Philoctetes, whom the Greeks marooned on the island of Lemnos and forgot about until the closing stages of the Siege of Troy. Abandoned because of a wounded foot, Philoctetes nevertheless possesses an invincible bow without which the Greeks cannot win the Trojan War. They are forced to return to Lemnos and seek out Philoctetes'' support in a drama that explores the conflict between personal integrity and political expediency. Heaney''s version of Philoctetes is a fast-paced, brilliant work ideally suited to the stage. Heaney holds on to the majesty of the Greek original, but manages to give his verse the flavor of Irish speech and context.

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.

In The Spirit Level, as ever with Seamus Heaney, personal memory and humble domestic objects -- a whitewash brush, a sofa, a swing -- are endowed with talismanic significance, and throughout the collection he addresses his growing concerns, which inevitably include the political situation in his native Northern Ireland, in a poetry that never ceases to be fluid, alert, and completely truthful.

This collection of thirty-one poems is Seamus Heaney''s first since Station Island. The Haw Lantern is a magnificent book that further extends the range of a poet who has always put his trust in the possibilities of the language.

A Boston Globe Best Poetry Book of 2011 Winner of the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize Winner of the 2011 Poetry Now Award Seamus Heaney''s new collection elicits continuities and solidarities, between husband and wife, child and parent, then and now, inside an intently remembered present—the stepping stones of the day, the weight and heft of what is passed from hand to hand, lifted and lowered. Human Chain also broaches larger questions of transmission, of lifelines to the inherited past. There are newly minted versions of anonymous early Irish lyrics, poems that stand at the crossroads of oral and written, and other "hermit songs" that weigh equally in their balance the craft of scribe and the poet''s early calling as scholar. A remarkable sequence entitled "Route 101" plots the descent into the underworld in the Aeneid against single moments in the arc of a life, from a 1950s childhood to the birth of a first grandchild. Other poems display a Virgilian pietas for the dead—friends, neighbors, family—that is yet wholly and movingly vernacular. Human Chain also includes a poetic "herbal" adapted from the Breton poet Guillevic—lyrics as delicate as ferns, which puzzle briefly over the world of things and landscapes that exclude human speech, while affirming the interconnectedness of phenomena, as of a self-sufficiency in which we too are included.

As selected by the author, Opened Ground includes the essential work from Heaney''s twelve previous books of poetry, as well as new sequences drawn from two of his landmark translations, The Cure at Troy and Sweeney Astray, and several previously uncollected poems. 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)--and this is a one-volume testament to the musicality and precision of that voice. The book closes with Heaney''s Nobel Lecture: "Crediting Poetry."

Sweeney Astray is Seamus Heaney''s version of the medieval Irish work Buile Suibne. Its hero, Mad Sweeney, undergoes a series of purgatorial adventures after he is cursed by a saint and turned into a bird at the Battle of Moira. Heaney''s translation not only restores to us a work of historical and literary importance but offers the genius of one of our greatest living poets to reinforce its claims on the reader of contemporary literature.

Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney''s first collection of prose, Preoccupations, begins with a vivid account of his early years on his father''s farm in Northern Ireland and his coming of age as a student and teacher in Belfast. Subsequent essays include critical work on Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Robert Lowell, William Butler Yeats, John Montague, Patrick Kavanagh, Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill, and Philip Larkin.

The book contains writings by Seamus Heaney, Frances Ruane, Carlos Garcia-Monzon, Eva Bourke, Frankie Gavin, Rosemarie Noone, James McKenna, Desmond Egan, Patrick Murphy & Frank McGuinness. It is lavishly illustrated & surveys the entire career of this distinguished artist.

This volume contains a selection of work from each of Seamus Heaney''s published books of poetry up to and including the Whitbread prize-winning collection, The Haw Lantern (1987). ''His is ''close-up'' poetry - close up to thought, to the world, to the emotions. Few writers at work today, in verse or fiction, can give the sense of rich, fecund, lived life that Heaney does.'' John Banville ''More than any other poet since Wordsworth he can make us understand that the outside world is not outside, but what we are made of.'' John Carey

Chronicles the life of twentieth-century Irish poet Seamus Heaney, from his infancy to his Nobel Prize in 1995, and also discusses his post-Nobel life, family, writings, and other related topics.

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

Sophocles'' play stands as a timely exploration of the conflict between those who affirm the individual''s human rights and those who must protect the state''s security. During the War of the Seven Against Thebes, Antigone learns that her brothers have killed each other, having been forced onto opposing sides. When Creon, king of Thebes, grants burial of one but not the "treacherous" other, Antigone defies his order, believing it her duty to bury all of her close kin. Enraged, Creon condemns her to death, and his soldiers wall her up in a tomb. In this new translation, Seamus Heaney exposes the darkness and the humanity in Sophocles'' masterpiece, and inks it with his own modern and masterly touch.

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 unique book published in associatin with Art for Amnesty. Anything Can Happen begins with an essay by Seamus Heaney written after September 11th, which was updated when the war in Iraq began and revised again for this edition. One of the main features of the book is ''Horace and the Thunder'' a poem by Heaney, inspired by Horace, writing 200 hundred years ago in Rome. Heaney''s work shown how relevant Horace''s vision remains and encourages the reader to realise this poem could have been written in modern day Beghdad. The feature which makes Anything Can Happen unique, is that with help of Marco Songanitzi of UCD, the book contains numerous translations of Heaney''s poem, making the book accessible and poignant as warring nations are able to sit side by side in peace.

Presents a new translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic chronicling the heroic adventures of Beowulf, the Scandinavian warrior who saves his people from the ravages of the monster Grendel and Grendel''s mother.

In this English translation of poems written by Ozef Kalda, which were set to music by Leos Janacek, the folktale of a farmer''s boy who abandons his home because he has fallen in love with a gypsy is told.