Field Work: Poems

Field Work, which first appeared in 1979, is a superb collection of lyrics and narrative poems from one of the literary masters of our time. As the critic Dennis Donoghue wrote in The New York Times Book Review: "In 1938, not a moment too soon, W.B. Yeats admonished his colleagues: 'Irish poets, learn your trade.' Seamus Heaney, born the following year, has learned his trade so well that it is now a second nature wonderfully responsive to his first. And the proof is in Field Work, a superb book . . . [This is] a perennial poetry offered at a time when many of us have despaired of seeing such a thing."

Seamus Heaney received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. His recent translations include Beowulf and Diary of One Who Vanished; his recent poetry collections include Opened Ground and "Electric Light.

"Heaney is keyed and pitched unlike any significant poet now at work in the language, anywhere." - Harold Bloom, The Times Literary Supplement.

"For all the qualities I list, the most important is song [and] the tune Heaney sings [is] poetry's tune, resolutions of cherished language." - Donald Hall, The Nation".