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Opened Ground: Poems, 1966-96 - Softcover

 
9780571194933: Opened Ground: Poems, 1966-96
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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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Review:
For Seamus Heaney, "opened ground" is a necessity--a way of getting to the root of things. The book bearing that name spans three decades, beginning with "Digging," his exhilarating portrait of the artist as a young revolutionary. "Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests; snug as a gun," Heaney boasts (although by the end of the poem, his weapon has metamorphosed into something closer to the spade his grandfather and father once relied upon). The last entry, the sonnet "Postscript," appears some 400 pages later, which makes Opened Ground a capacious selection of his work. But at this point Heaney requires the largest of hold-alls. There are beautiful, pastoral lyrics here, sequences such as "Glanmore Sonnets" and "Clearances," and a multitude of love poems, not solely to his wife but to his parents and children. And in Heaney's hands, small domestic moments and objects--a scrabble board, a swing, a kite, a bed sawn in half to get it downstairs--invariably become both reality and soaring myth.

At the same time, his Ireland is the site of "neighborly murders," and the past and larger world he confronts is one threatened by history and brutal sectarianism. Heaney has declared, "Fear is the emotion that the muse thrives on. That's always there"--and terror is pervasive in his "land of password, handgrip, wink and nod, / Of open minds as open as a trap." Many of his poems that explore the Troubles reflect his own considerable concern that he has long "confused evasion and artistic tact." Others might be termed self-reflexive, since Heaney uses them to unearth his own role. "Kinship" features a simple, brilliant (not to mention canine!) simile:

I step through origins
like a dog turning
its memories of wilderness
on the kitchen mat.
In a later poem, "From the Frontier of Writing," he compares the struggle for inspiration to being stopped at a roadblock: "And everything is pure interrogation / until a rifle motions you and you move / with guarded unconcerned acceleration." Heaney's gift is dazzling, and would be almost unbearable were it not matched by vigilance, self-doubt, and regret--and his longing for the day in which "justice can rise up / And hope and history rhyme." --Kerry Fried
About the Author:
Seamus Heaney was born in County Derry in Northern Ireland. Death of a Naturalist, his first collection of poems, appeared in 1966, and was followed by poetry, criticism and translations which established him as the leading poet of his generation. In 1995 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and twice won the Whitbread Book of the Year, for The Spirit Level (1996) and Beowulf (1999). Stepping Stones, a book of interviews conducted by Dennis O'Driscoll, appeared in 2008; Human Chain, his last volume of poems, was awarded the 2010 Forward Prize for Best Collection. He died in 2013. His translation of Virgil's Aeneid Book VI was published posthumously in 2016 to critical acclaim.

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  • PublisherFaber & Faber
  • Publication date2002
  • ISBN 10 0571194931
  • ISBN 13 9780571194933
  • BindingPaperback
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages479
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780374526788: Opened Ground

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ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780374526788
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999
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  • 9780374235178: Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996

    Farrar..., 1998
    Hardcover

  • 9780571194926: Opened Ground : Poems, 1966-96

    -, 1998
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  • 9780571313099: Opened Ground: Poems 1966-1996

    Faber ..., 2013
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  • 9780571197668: Opened Ground: Poems 1966-96

    Faber ..., 1998
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Book Description Softcover. Condition: New. First Edition. 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'. Seller Inventory # DADAX0571194931

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Book Description Condition: New. 2002. Main. Paperback. A reissue of Heaney's "New Selected Poems 1966-1987", which has been expanded to include work from two subsequent collections, "Seeing Things" and the award-winning "The Spirit Level", as well as poems not previously published. Num Pages: 496 pages. BIC Classification: DCF. Category: (E) Primary & Secondary Education. Dimension: 197 x 143 x 38. Weight in Grams: 548. 478pp. . . . . Seller Inventory # 9780571194933

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Book Description Condition: New. 2002. Main. Paperback. A reissue of Heaney's "New Selected Poems 1966-1987", which has been expanded to include work from two subsequent collections, "Seeing Things" and the award-winning "The Spirit Level", as well as poems not previously published. Num Pages: 496 pages. BIC Classification: DCF. Category: (E) Primary & Secondary Education. Dimension: 197 x 143 x 38. Weight in Grams: 548. 478pp. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # 9780571194933

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Book Description Soft cover. Condition: New. 1st Edition. Brand new. In stock. Ships in 1 2 days. Free delivery with order of two or more books. As selected by the author, Opened Ground includes the essential work from Heaney's twelve previous books of poetry, as well as new sequences drawn from two of his landmark translations, The Cure at Troy and Sweeney Astray, and several previously uncollected poems. Heaney's voice is like no other--"by turns mythological and journalistic, rural and sophisticated, reminiscent and impatient, stern and yielding, curt and expansive" (Helen Vendler, The New Yorker)--and this is a one-volume testament to the musicality and precision of that voice. The book closes with Heaney's Nobel Lecture: "Crediting Poetry.". Seller Inventory # ABE-1671638968940

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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. 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. 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'. A much-needed new selection of Seamus Heaney's work. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780571194933

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