Opened Ground Selected Poems, 1966-1996 [Paperback]

As selected by the author,Opened Groundincludes 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 TroyandSweeney 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.

Author's Note

from Death of a Naturalist (1966)

Digging
Death of a Naturalist
The Barn
Blackberry-Picking
Churning Day
Follower
Mid-Term Break
The Diviner
Poem
Personal Helicon

Antaeus (1966)

from Door into the Dark (1969)

The Outlaw
The Forge
Thatcher
The Peninsula
Requiem for the Croppies
Undine
The Wife's Tale
Night Drive
Relic of Memory
A Lough Neagh Sequence
The Given Note
Whinlands
The Plantation
Bann Clay
Bogland

from Wintering Out (1972)

Fodder
Bog Oak
Anahorish
Servant Boy
Land
Gifts of Rain
Toome
Broagh
Oracle
The Backward Look
A New Song
The Other Side
Tinder (from A Northern Hoard)
The Tollund Man

Nerthus
Wedding Day
Mother of the Groom
Summer Home
Serenades
Shore Woman
Limbo
Bye-Child
Good-night
Fireside