SEAMUS HEANEY: A Life Well Written

Highlighting the work of the poet and Noble Laureate Seamus Heaney, this catalogue testifies to the ongoing power of his poetry. There are detailed descriptions of more than 50 items that were displayed at the Grolier Club exhibition in a fitting appreciation of the poet's life in print. A rare and collectable 2014 first edition publication from the exhibition September to November of that year, it begins with a colour full page photograph of the poet Seamus Heaney in the late 1980s taken in Toner's Bog, Northern Ireland on a walk when it had just began to rain with the author. This extraordinary collection began with books, captivating broadsides, Christmas cards and other ephemera the author discovered Gorgon, where in 1959 an untested Heaney published a poem under a pseudonym Incertus, early broadsheets where he and other poets printed their early work, and a poetry discussion group in Northern Ireland led initially by Philip Hobsbaum and then by Heaney. Heaney also worked with many artists and produced beautiful works for special occasions such as birthdays, awards, anniversaries and he composed special poems. His iconic poem Digging compares his work to that of his father digging in his garden: 'Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound when the blade sinks into gravelly ground; my father, digging...By God, the old man could handle a spade...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.' Beautifully bound, glossy white paper and very well illustrated in colour, 112pp, 18.5 x 28cm.