Present Books In Favor Of Death of a Naturalist
| Original Title: | Death of a Naturalist |
| ISBN: | 0571202403 (ISBN13: 9780571202409) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Somerset Maugham Award (1968), Cholmondeley Award (1967), Eric Gregory Award (1966), Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (1968) |
Seamus Heaney
Paperback | Pages: 46 pages Rating: 4.28 | 2435 Users | 145 Reviews
List Containing Books Death of a Naturalist
| Title | : | Death of a Naturalist |
| Author | : | Seamus Heaney |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 46 pages |
| Published | : | October 4th 1999 by Faber & Faber (first published 1966) |
| Categories | : | Poetry. Cultural. Ireland. European Literature. Irish Literature. Classics |
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Some books are thin and light, yet they carry so much weight, like Heaney's Death of a Naturalist. Each poem in this collection is a work of art, a masterpiece. There is neither pretentiousness nor symbolism here. The collection is one of his most accessible and the best place to start with his work. Each poem is a story in itself and in this, Heaney has mesmerized me. I just imagined someone who had written an entire collection of short stories and then thought: "Let's see how we can strip away all the unnecessary narrative and just capture the essential imagery to reflect the story".The autobiographical nature of these poems adds further interest, and exhibits the emotional investment that Heaney imparts on his reader, like in 'Digging' where we see the Heaney descended from a lineage of farmers who takes the path of the writer (an excerpt):
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
A befitting opening poem to let us know where he comes from and his tool of choice. The poems to follow reflect on his childhood growing up in a farm, elaborating on all kinds of experiences from the classroom to the slaughterhouse to first love; speaking of which, 'Twice Shy', the poem on first love was my favorite (an excerpt):
Her scarf a lá Bardot,
In suede flats for the walk,
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
We crossed the quiet river,
Took the embankment walk.
Traffic holding its breath,
Sky a tense diaphragm:
Dusk hung like a blackcloth
That shook where a swan swam,
Tremulous as a hawk
Hanging deadly, calm.
Then there was the sober and moving poem about the loss of his four-year-old brother in the poem 'Mid-Term Break', with the last line so powerful it leaves an affecting resonance (an excerpt):
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, one foot for every year.
Rating Containing Books Death of a Naturalist
Ratings: 4.28 From 2435 Users | 145 ReviewsRate Containing Books Death of a Naturalist
Coming back to this volume of poems after many years, it was an absolute joy & I found myself upping my rating of it to 5 stars. The delightful quality of the poems in themselves, which breathe & encapsulate the world that Heaney inhabits & present it to the reader in the most vivid of images deserve regular re-readings in order to soak in them.Their attraction was probably heightened by reading them during a 5 hour coach journey (I loath the enclosure, discomfort & stuffiness ofFave poems: Digging, Valediction, and Death of a Naturalist
Some books are thin and light, yet they carry so much weight, like Heaney's Death of a Naturalist. Each poem in this collection is a work of art, a masterpiece. There is neither pretentiousness nor symbolism here. The collection is one of his most accessible and the best place to start with his work. Each poem is a story in itself and in this, Heaney has mesmerized me. I just imagined someone who had written an entire collection of short stories and then thought: "Let's see how we can strip away
I'm going to be reading Heaney's work over again, and very carefully. And I now own this hardcover, special edition of Death of a Naturalist to mark the 50th year anniversary of it's publication. So, it seemed right to revisit it now. It was only £13, and this is now easily one of my favourite books of poetry, so it seemed like a good investment. I'm going to give thoughts on each poem: 'Digging' This first poem in the collection is not a very complicated poem, but it is better for it to open
In memory and honor of Seamus Heaney, this evening Oleg and I alternated reading aloud from "Death of a Naturalist." Some favorite poems include "Digging," "Death of a Naturalist," "Blackberry-Picking," "Mid-Term Break," "The Diviner," "Scaffolding," and "Personal Helicon." Seamus Heaney read many of these poems at a reading that I attended at St. Oswald's Church in Grasmere, England in the summer of 2010.
Thinking, for what should be obvious reasons, about previous Anglophone poets who won the Nobel Prize, I decided to read this, Seamus Heaney's first collection, published in 1966. All the virtues we've heard about and know from the anthology piecesthe dense sonic texture of the poems, their thickness like that of the matter they describe, a verbal impasto thickened with slant-rhyme, alliteration, and assonanceare there in full in the poet's debut. I analyze what I think it all means:Two famous
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