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Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996 by Seamus Heaney [FIRST U.S. PAPERBACK PRINTING] 1998 • FSG

Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996 by Seamus Heaney [FIRST U.S. PAPERBACK PRINTING] 1998 • FSG

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Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996 by Seamus Heaney

FIRST PAPERBACK PRINTING [1998] FARRAR STRAUS GIROUX

1st FSG Trade Paperback Printing.

Trade paperback in very good condition. 

Shelf wear and some tanning to wraps of cover.  Reads like new.

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 back 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.

And in early poems like "Blackberry Picking", Heaney's images--deftly, delightfully--carry us back to childhood fields: At first, just one, a glossy purple clot 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... Opened Ground is a pleasure and a triumph. These three decades of work confirm Heaney as one of the most important poets of his time. 
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