Hachette India

The Spirit Level

Seamus Heaney

The poems in Seamus Heaney's collection The Spirit Level keep discovering the possibilities of 'a new beginning' in all kinds of subjects and circumstances. What is at stake, in poem after poem, is the chance of buoyancy and balance, physical, spiritual and political. Private memories, classical scenes, humble domestic objects - a whitewash brush, a sofa, a swing - are endowed with talismanic significance, while friends and relatives are invoked for their promise and steadfastness. Throughout the collection, Heaney addresses his concerns, which inevitably include the political situation in his native Northern Ireland, in a poetry that never ceases to be fluid, alert and completely truthful.

Seamus Heaney

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, followed in 2018 by 100 Poems, a selection of poems from his entire career, chosen by his family.

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The Spirit Level

Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney

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The Poems of Seamus Heaney

North

The Letters of Seamus Heaney

The Translations of Seamus Heaney

The Letters of Seamus Heaney

100 Poems

The Haw Lantern

Aeneid Book VI

100 Poems

The Cure at Troy

Death of a Naturalist

New Selected Poems 1988-2013

Human Chain

District and Circle

The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables: Translated by Seamus Heaney

W. B. Yeats

Beowulf

Death of a Naturalist

The Rattle Bag: An Anthology of Poetry

The Burial at Thebes

The School Bag

W. B. Yeats

Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971 - 2001

The Redress of Poetry

Door into the Dark

Beowulf

New Selected Poems 1966-1987

Opened Ground

Wintering Out

North

Station Island

Sweeney Astray

Field Work

Electric Light

Government of the Tongue