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80th out of 104 books
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39 voters
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North: Poems
With this collection, first published in 1975, Heaney located a myth which allowed him to articulate a vision of Ireland--its people, history, and landscape--and which gave his poems direction, cohesion, and cumulative power. In North, the Irish experience is refracted through images drawn from different parts of the Northern European experience, and the idea of the n...more
Paperback, 73 pages
Published
January 1st 1985
by Faber & Faber
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My favorite part of this book is the relationship between first part and second part. the imagistic portrayal of the country versus the personal narrative poems. I draw a thesis in the space between these two. If Ireland has had so many different masters, or tormenters, then how is one to settle on any identity. That conflicted sense of identity, which I read with such pleasure in Derek Walcott's poems, is definitely evident here.
North is a portrait of Ireland and can be read as depicting either a very primitive time (as suggested by the bardic qualities) or as being set in the strange landscapes one finds in the work of Samuel Beckett. The language is rough, earth-bound, concrete, monosyllabic and rural, and references to bogs, fens and swamps may remind some of William Shakespeare’s Caliban (Shakespeare’s The Tempest). Some of the poems make reference to the political conflicts in Ireland and their effect on Heaney a...more
Brutal and beautiful. Sensuous and and painful. Poignant. Essential poetry reading.
There are some poems I really liked, but overall it's kind of like reading chunky peanut butter. I love peanut butter -- but not chunky peanut butter.
Strange and twisted, Heaney's images are often grotesque and yet deceivingly simple. I can't come up with what I think of it yet. I'll have to spend more time with his book. . .
I loved this small and delicate collection!
a tiny masterpiece of heaney's - including many of his bog people poems (swoon) and some gorgeous political poems. his adept use of language and culture are on full display.
Seamus Heaney, apart from being my favorite contemporary poet, turns the notion of poetry on its head by finding the beauty in even the most grotesque. By reading North, one gets a true feeling of the interconnectedness not only of all things, but of all generations of life throughout history--that the dead never truly leave waking life. I re-read this book all the time.
Emotionless and academic
I heard Heaney read some of these poems once. They're better aloud. Of course the poems are good on paper, too, but if the book could read aloud it would get 4 or 5 stars.
Fabulous collection. Uses mythology, history, and old English linguistic patterns in fascinating ways to explore Irish culture.
Seamus Heaney is brilliant. Concise, descriptive, deep, provocative. Makes mysterious old historical imagery come alive.
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Northern Ireland, how I love you.
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Seamus Justin Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer from County Derry, Ireland. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." He currently lives in Dublin.
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