Seamus Heaney Michael Longley David (3 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Very good condition with some wear along spine edge, minor marks.

Softcover. Condition: Fine. First edition. Square octavo. [32]pp. Stapled red pictorial wrappers printed in black. Illustrated with photographic reproductions of the contributors. Small stain inside front cover else a just about fine copy. Housed in a custom green cloth clamshell case titled in gilt. Signed by Seamus Heaney, Longley, and on the photographic frontispiece. The poets each contribute nine poems and Hammond contributes nine songs. Heaney contributes three poems that are first appearances and not previously collected elsewhere: "Requiem for the Croppies," Elegy for a Still-Born Child," and "Last Look." Very scarce.

Condition: V.G. First. Signed by all with humorous comments - Quarto p.p. 32. Photographs of three authors, separately and together. Stiff pictorial wrappers. Extremely rare copy signed by the three contributors with their amusing comments in bubble format. The three each contributed nine pieces, poems from the two poets and songs from the singer. Five of Heaney's poems were previously unpublished and three of these were included in his book 'Door into the Dark', 1969. In May 1968 the Arts Council invited Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley and David Hammond to visit a number of towns in Northern Ireland with a programme which, genuflecting to tradition, toured under the title 'Room to Rhyme'. To find a common denominator the two poets and the ballad collector sought a number of themes commonly treated by each in song and verse. Since the anthology and the comparisons to be made within each theme (symbolized on the front cover by Ralph Dobson) retain interest and vitality apart from the tour, the Council decided to publish this booklet in the hope that it will give greater currency to the vision and verse of two contemporary Irish writers and increase familiarity with the oral tradition to which the bulk of the ballads belong" (preface).