First published in 1966 this is the debut offering from Seamus Heaney which went on to win numerous awards. The talent was there to see from the start. Simple and observant these are a joy to read.
March 2010 Guest Editor Susan Fletcher on Death of a Naturalist...
I've always loved poetry - and this the volume that started off that love. I was introduced to Heaney at school, studying the title poem from this collection in class. That might have put most people off him, but I loved the poem - and went on to buy this book. I love how he intertwines the natural world with human experience, how he captures a waterfall or the sky over a peninsular, or the sense of unrequited love, as it is - absolutely. I read a line and think, 'that's it! He's got it!' And it's hard not to be wildly impressed with someone who can manage that. And it is his last poem in Death of a Naturalist that speaks to me the most. He says that he "rhymes to see himself, to set the darkness echoing" - and, as a writer, I can understand that sentiment entirely. I have that quote written out, above my desk.
| Primary Genre | Poetry |
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On its original appearance in 1966, Death of a Naturalist won the Cholmondeley Award, a Gregory Award, the Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.
'His words give us the soil-reek of Ireland, the colourful violence of his childhood on a farm in Derry. The full-blooded energy of these poems makes Death of a Naturalist the best first book of poems I've read for some time.' - C.B. Cox in the Spectator
'The power and precision of his best poems are a delight, and as a first collection Death of a Naturalist is outstanding [...] His subject is those things which are inherent or inherited. What he praises is to be praised in his own work.' - Christopher Ricks, New Statesman
''His childhood landscape has acquired the validity of myth.' Michael Longley, Irish Times
Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.
Death of a Naturalist features in the following genres: Poetry, eBooks of the Month, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, Recommendations
Death of a Naturalist is available in Hardback, Ebook, Paperback
Death of a Naturalist was written by Seamus Heaney and published by Faber & Faber
Death of a Naturalist has 64 pages
Yes it is part of Landscapes series
£13.49
