Death of a Naturalist

by Seamus Heaney

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 56
Rating:

Synopsis:

Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney is the stunning and revelatory first collection by the Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet.

Seamus Heaney’s Death of a Naturalist collection contains some of the poems I know best, including my favourite, ‘Mid-Term Break’, the final line of which is always a perfect punch in the gut:

“A four foot box, a foot for every year.”

There’s something that’s very distinctive about Heaney’s voice as a poet for me, something very solid and direct. It’s not that he doesn’t use imagery, or metaphors, or poetic diction — of course he does at times — but it still feels fundamentally straightforward. Which is part of the art of it, of course.

Definitely one of my favourite volumes of poetry I’ve read lately, if not ever.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)