Opened Ground: Poems, 1966-96
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Amazon.co.uk Review
In "Digging", the first poem in Opened Ground, Heaney likens his pen to both spade and gun. With these metaphors in place, he makes clear his difficult poetic task: to delve into the past, both personal and historic, while remaining ever mindful of the potentially fatal power of language. Born and raised in Northern Ireland, where any hint of Gaelic tradition in one's speech was considered a political act, Heaney is all too aware of the dire consequences of speaking one's mind. Indeed, during times of crisis, he has been expected to appear on television and dispense political wisdom. Most often, however, he stays out of the fray and opts for a supreme sense of empathy to guide his words.
As excavator--of earth, of his beloved Gaelic, of his own life--Heaney is unmatched. In "Bone Dreams", the archaeologist's task is synonymous with reaching for a cultural past:
I push backAnd in early poems like "Blackberry Picking", Heaney's images--deftly, delightfully--carry us back to childhood fields:
through dictions,
Elizabethan canopies,
Norman devices,
the erotic mayflowers
of Provence
and the ivied Latins
of churchmen
to the scop's
twang, the iron
flash of consonants
cleaving the line.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clotOpened Ground is a pleasure and a triumph. These three decades of work confirm Heaney as one of the most important poets of his time. --Martha Silano --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full...
Product Description
This volume is a much-needed new selection of Seamus Heaney's work, taking account of recent volumes and of the author's work as a translator, and offering a more generous choice from previous volumes. Opened Ground: Poems 1966-1996 comes as close to being a 'Collected Poems' as its author cares to make it. It replaces his New Selected Poems 1966-1987, giving a fuller selection from each of the volumes represented there and adding large parts of those that have appeared since, together with examples of his work as a translator from the Greek, Latin, Italian and other languages. The book concludes with 'Crediting Poetry', the speech with which Seamus Heaney accepted the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded to him, in the words of the Swedish Academy of Letters, for his 'works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth'.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What a collection. A life's work that is still continuing and must be read. Heaney taps into the undergrowth of nature and links it beautifully to our own lives like no other poet. His sonnets "Clearances" are beautiful, and even in one case, humourous. His subjects vary of course, but always with that earthy mood that is so typically Seamus Heaney. As a reader of poetry you must own this book.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Heaney is a very special poet, similar in my mind to Yeats and Dylan Thomas, with a Zen Buddhist twist - an underground clearly visible through the influences of the Chinese poet Han Shan "Cold Mountain". Like Zen poetry he is often very simple, linear, and descriptive on the surface yet with lots of intertwining symbolism, language play and richness working to create a poetic reality true to external reality yet ripping open to a more profound reality in his attempt to "stabilize truth" as Ben Johnson has said. He is also often times very oblique in his simplicity - a challenge to any poetic mind. This collection also includes his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, "Crediting Poetry" which is a gem. He is a modern classic. This collection includes most of his best works as well as an excerpt from his play "The Cure at Troy". Cold Mountain: Poetry of Han-Shan: A Complete Annotated Translation of Cold Mountain (SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies)
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I really enjoyed reading 'Opened Ground' as part of my English A level course, especially the 'bog' poems in 'Wintering Out' and 'North'. Heaney has an extraordinary fascination with the discoveries of various iron age bodies as shown by his deeply but clearly expressed emotions and feelings in each of his poems. They are all easy to read and follow making me feel as if I could really relate to what Heaney saw and felt.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Restores faith in modern poetry!
Often when reading poetry one will turn to older poets, Wilde, Baudelaire, but Heany is a modern poet who can be held amongst these older giants. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Jordan
Epoch making collection from a marvellous poet
Although, as an Advanced Higher student, I feel a slight bias towards the opening "Death of a Naturalist" poems in the collection, this book is the definitive edition... Read more
Published on 17 May 2001
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