Electric Light

Limited first edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 81. Black cloth-backed beige paper boards with printed paper label to spine, in a matching slipcase. #180/300 specially bound and numbered copies, out of a total edition of 325, signed by the author on the colophon page. In its original shrinkwrap. Issued simultaneously with the paperback and cased trade editions.

Author's eleventh collection of poetry. Thematically divided into two parts, ranging from short takes (glosses) to conversation poems, the former hymning the sites of the classical world and the Gaeltacht (rural Gaelic-speaking regions in Ireland), while the latter paying homage to Heaney's inspirations, including elegies to Joseph Brodsky and Ted Hughes.

The memorial quality of this second part is beautifully summed up in the title of the poem about the deer-park in Magdalen College where Heaney stayed as Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1989 to 1994, "Would they had stay'd" (from Macbeth). Awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past."

[Brandes & Durkan A75c]