LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
First published in 1966 this is the debut offering from Seamus Heaney which went on to win numerous awards. The talent was there to see from the start. Simple and observant these are a joy to read.
March 2010 Guest Editor Susan Fletcher on Death of a Naturalist...
I've always loved poetry - and this the volume that started off that love. I was introduced to Heaney at school, studying the title poem from this collection in class. That might have put most people off him, but I loved the poem - and went on to buy this book. I love how he intertwines the natural world with human experience, how he captures a waterfall or the sky over a peninsular, or the sense of unrequited love, as it is - absolutely. I read a line and think, 'that's it! He's got it!' And it's hard not to be wildly impressed with someone who can manage that. And it is his last poem in Death of a Naturalist that speaks to me the most. He says that he "rhymes to see himself, to set the darkness echoing" - and, as a writer, I can understand that sentiment entirely. I have that quote written out, above my desk.
LoveReading
Find This Book In
| Primary Genre |
Poetry
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| Recommendations: |
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About
Death of a Naturalist Synopsis
Reissues Seamus Heaney's collection, which on its appearance in 1966 won the Cholmondeley Award, the E C Gregory Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780571230839 |
| Publication date: |
6th April 2006 |
| Author: |
Seamus Heaney |
| Publisher: |
Faber and Faber |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
44 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Poetry
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| Recommendations: |
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Author
About Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney was born in 1939 in County Derry in Northern Ireland. He grew up in the country, on a farm, in touch with a traditional rural way of life, which he wrote about in his first book Death of a Naturalist (1966).
Seamus Heaney began to write in 1962, publishing first in Irish magazines. During the early and mid-sixties, he was connected with a group of writers in Belfast that included Derek Mahon, Michael Longley and James Simmons. Philip Hobsbaum ran a poetry group during these years and the poets met regularly at his house until he moved to Glasgow in 1966. After this, the meetings continued under Heaney's chairmanship until 1970, and in this later period were attended by younger poets such as Paul Muldoon, Frank Ormsby and Michael Foley.
Seamus Heaney has won numerous awards, including the Somerset Maugham Award (1968), the Denis Devlin Award (1973), the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize (1975), the American Irish Foundation Literary Award (1973) and the WHSmith Annual Award (1976). In 1987 he was awarded the Whitbread Poetry Award for The Haw Lantern.
In 1965 he married Marie Devlin and they have three children. He is currently the Ralph Waldo Emerson Poet-in-Residence at Harvard University where he goes to teach for 6 weeks every two years. From 1989 to 1994 Seamus Heaney was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University.
In October 1995, Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in August 2013.
More About Seamus Heaney
