Human Chain - Softcover

Heaney, Seamus

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571269249 ISBN 13: 9780571269242

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2012

Synopsis

Seamus Heaney's new collection elicits continuities and solidarities, between husband and wife, child and parent, then and now, inside an intently remembered present - the stepping stones of the day, the weight and heft of what is passed from hand to hand, lifted and lowered. Human Chain also broaches larger questions of transmission, as lifelines to the inherited past. There are newly minted versions of anonymous early Irish lyrics, poems which stand at the crossroads of oral and written, and other 'hermit songs' which weigh equally in their balance the craft of scribe and the poet's early calling as scholar. A remarkable sequence entitled 'Route 110' plots the descent into the underworld in the Aeneid against single moments in the arc of a life, from a 1950s adolescence to the birth of the poet's first grandchild. Other poems display a Virgilian pietas for the dead - friends, neighbours and family - which is yet wholly and movingly vernacular.

Human Chain is Seamus Heaney's twelfth collection of poems.

About this title

Review:

'These poems are sparse, compact little jewels. Reading them is like biting into a meal cooked by an expert chef; every so often, you take a bite that is suddenly, blindingly full of flavour ... supreme.' --Evening Standard

'This beautiful and affecting collection includes Heaney's own not-so-distant brush with death ... The prevailing tone is retrospective, clear and unflustered as if written from the vantage point of a small hilltop ... Many poems are tender and welcoming but Heaney was never one for false consolation. There are bracing elegies here too. ' --Kate Kellaway, Observer POETRY BOOK OF THE MONTH

'The poems in it [the collection] are short, unpretentious, and often about quite humdrum things. But they are a jubilant display of unfaltering and seemingly casual mastery ... this collection is almost a mini-biography, but made of poetic wonders not career steps ... complete, brilliant and assured, reminding us once more that as a poet Heaney is on his own.' --John Carey, Sunday Times

'Magnificent collection.' -- Irish Times

'Remarkably beautiful poems ... a superb collection from a poet at the peak of his powers.' -- Sunday Business Post

'Sparse, compact little jewels ... supreme.' --Scotsman

'The poems in it [the collection] are short, unpretentious, and often about quite humdrum things. But they are a jubilant display of unfaltering and seemingly casual mastery ... this collection is almost a mini-biography, but made of poetic wonders not career steps ... complete, brilliant and assured, reminding us once more that as a poet Heaney is on his own.' --John Carey, Sunday Times

Book Description:

Human Chain by Seamus Heaney is the last collection of poems by the Nobel Prize-winning poet and translator.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0571269249
• ISBN 13: 9780571269242
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96