100 Poems

June 24, 2019
Five years after the death of the celebrated Irish poet, Heaney’s family has compiled 100 poems from his 12 books. This compilation opens with the classics, including “Digging,” a contemplative ode to the poet’s father, a potato farmer, that transports the reader to the County Derry of Heaney’s youth, with its “cold smell of potato mould” and “the squelch and slap/ Of soggy peat.” In “Mid-term Break,” Heaney offers an affecting meditation on the death of his younger brother, and a lasting reflection regarding societal expectations of male enactments of grief. Heaney’s musicality and admiration for human labor is evident in poems such as “At Banagher,” which narrates a visit to the tailor: “So more power to him on the job there, ill at ease/ Under my scrutiny in spite of years/ Of being inscrutable as he threaded needles.” A series of poems called “Singing School” explore Heaney’s Catholic school education with equal parts wonder and melancholia, sympathetic for the boy he once was: “On my first day, the leather strap/ Went epileptic in the Big Study,/ Its echoes plashing over our bowed heads.” Heaney’s wistful elegies for people, places, and things that have been lost are stirring and heartfelt. This book offers a perfect entrance into the Nobel laureate’s work for new readers and a potent assemblage of his best for ardent fans.