Opened Ground. Poems 1966–1996.

First edition. Thick 8vo. Pp. xiii-[xiv], 478. Dark green paper-covered boards, titled in orange to spine. Author's Note, Index of Titles & Index of First Lines. Detail from triptych of Christ Carrying the Cross, by Hieronymus Bosch, to dark green dust jacket, printed in white.

'As close to being a "Collected Poems" as this Nobel Prize-winning poet cares to make it.' It includes selections from Heaney's twelve previous books of poetry, as well as sequences drawn from his landmark translations, The Cure at Troy and Sweeney Astray. The book concludes with 'Crediting Poetry', his acceptance speech of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded to him, (in the words of the Swedish Academy of Letters), for his "works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth."

[Brandes & Durkan A70a]