Seamus Heaney's first collection of poems, "Death of a Naturalist", was published 41 years ago. "District and Circle" is Heaney's 12th volume of poems. It is the first collection of poems by Heaney that I have read. This obviously makes me very new to Heaney's work. Acknowledged as one of the leading poets writing in English, I approached Heaney's District and Circle with some awe.
The of poems in this collection were published in other outlets before being brought together as "District and Circle". What holds them together and give them a sense of cohesiveness is Heaney's reflections and observations of ordinary things and activities that run throughout the book. In "The Aerodrome" Heaney reflects upon a specific place and the way it changes over time. In this poem Heaney's tone and attitude is one of concern and love for this place. There is a revealing line that says: "if self is a location, so is love". Take another example, the title poem, District and Circle. In this poem the ordinary activity of an under ground journey is presented in a refreshing manner that makes one pause for thought about the hustle and bustle of daily life.
These poems in the main appear to be very personal. They display autobiographical vignettes of Heaney's experiences. There are references to religion in the three poems under the heading "Out of this World", there is the keen observation of a mowing machine in the "The Iowa Snow", and there is the mischievous playful youth being surprised by nature in the poem "On the Spot". I marvelled at Heaney's experiences but found it difficult to empathized with him.
If there is a particular form that stands out in this collection, it is the sonnet-like poems. I say sonnet-line because although these poems have the required 14 lines they do not have any rhyming patterns. The sonnet props up throughout the book and it is here in particular that I think Heaney is at his best. He uses the sonnet to spring surprises upon us - see "The Nod", or sometimes to pin un down in the mundane everyday things and activities of life - see "A Clip".
However, these were not poems that reached out and engaged me emotionally. Instead, I was left with the impression of a master conducting an intellectual exercise and in full technical control of his material. Perhaps the best example of this is in two connected poems - "Poet to Blacksmith" and "Midnight Anvil". In these two poems one could hear the tone of the speaker's voice and grasp a sense of the rhythm of normal natural chatter. However, I felt shut out from what appears to be the setting of rural life.
The poems in this collection appear to me to be very insular. They lack universal appeal. Nonethess, in reading the collection, I marvelled at what appeared to be Heaney's attempt to forge a new language to present his subject matter - for example, the poems are littered with new compound words. I found the collection technically sound but in terms of subject matters addressed it lacked significance so for this reason I can only give it three stars.
