Field Work is Seamus Heaney's fifth book of poems, and his first to
be published in this country. His strong and beautiful verse
already has a following on American campuses, and this fine new
book will undoubtedly extend the range of his influence. His
Ireland is an "island. . . full of comfortless voices"; he lived in
Belfast for many years, as the elegies for the war dead
("Casualty," "A Postcard from North Antrim," etc.) and other
troubled poems attest. "Ugolino," the translation of a passage from
The Divine Comedy, also concerns war and vengeance, and injustice:
"For the sins/ of Ugolino, who betrayed your forts,/ Should never
have been visited on his sons." The delicate "Elegy" is a memory of
Robert Lowell's last days. But Heaney's Ireland is also quotidian:
"She came every morning to draw water/ Like an old bat staggering
up the field:/ The pump's whooping cough, the bucket's clatter/ And
slow diminuendo as it filled,/ Announced her." Ten "Glanmore
Sonnets," which occupy a central place in the book, commemorate an
easing in the poet's life, a time when "Vowels ploughed into other:
opened ground"; and this is the "field work" of the title poem as
well. Looking at an ugly badger, Heaney asks: "How perilous is it
to choose/ not to love the life we're shown?" Waist-deep in
language, he does. A fine introduction to a staunch, resonant
spirit. (Kirkus Reviews)
At the centre of this collection, which includes groups of elegies
and love poems, there is a short sonnet sequence which concentrates
themes apparent elsewhere in the book: the individual's
responsibility for his own choices, the artist's commitment to his
vocation, the vulnerability of all in the face of circumstance and
death. 'Throughout the volume Heaney's outstanding gifts, his eye,
his ear, his understanding of the poetic language are on display -
this is a book we cannot do without.' Martin Dodsworth, Guardian
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