Seamus Heaney: 7 Poems from "North"

An episode from 8/1/24: Tonight, I read seven poems from Seamus Heaney’s 1974 collection, North. Few poets from the last century took on the reality of violence in the ancient and modern world the way Heaney does in his poems about Iron Age bog bodies, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and ruminations through mythology and Viking history. I also read four poems from Heaney’s previous books, that can serve as a prologue to North:

• Personal Helicon (from Death of a Naturalist)
• Dream (from Door into the Dark)
• Bogland (from Door into the Dark)
• The Tollund Man (from Wintering Out)

Poems from North:

• Belderg
• Funeral Rites
• Bone Dreams pt. II
• Bog Queen
• The Grauballe Man
• Punishment
• Kinship

Audio of Heaney reading “Personal Helicon” comes fromhis 1971 appearance at the 92nd Street Y.The episode also includes excerpts fromDennis O'Driscoll's ⁠Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney⁠, and The Letters of Seamus Heaney. This episode is revision and complete re-recording of an episode first released in June, 2021.

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