Even having read and enjoyed a number of Seamus heaney's other collections of poetry, North was complicated to digest. Not only does Heaney employ a distinctly dialectical vocabulary centred in his Irish roots which is alien (though beautiful) to foreign ears, he also steeps it in a tone that portrays a sense of distance from the reader. We may be reading his words and connecting with them on some level, but this group of poems really seems to remain rooted in the poet's ind. Last/this year I read Edward Rutherfurd's Dublin Saga which gave me more of an understanding of the social and political history of the country than previously, but these poems strike a much more nuanced tone as they blend history and the current experiences of the author. He touches on the fostering system, echoes the republican conflicts, and explores the Irish funereal experience, but the poem that I kenned to was unsurprisingly "Bog Queen." The poem holds a certain brutal, yet beautiful quality that to me embodies what I know of Irish history, culture, and mythology. The land (as embodied through the Queen) is undoubtedly beautiful, yet its pagan roots have pockets of darkness, and even the apparent illumination of Christianity and learning were tempered by the brutality of many waves of invasions (both physically, spiritually, and culturally). The Bog Queen herself is a magical being from the past (the buried queen of Ireland's first settlers lost?), yet her current persona has no less impact even though time has done its worst to her. Beware, Heaney seem to be saying, or glory? Look to the last, but be sure not to unearth what should stay buried. ( )

Another wonderful collection by Seamus Heaney. Part I uses the landscape of and in particular the bog as extended symbol and metonymy, as the past rises in corpses preserved by the peat to speak to and about the violence of the present. Part II questions the proper role of the poet when facing tyranny, political violence, or other moral outrages.

Heaney’s musicality and eloquence sing, his diction somehow rich with echoes of the past and yet modern enough. There is a universality to Heaney that assures he will continue to be read, like Yeats, even though the political events have faded into the past. ( )

I was doing research on Seamus Heaney and Northern Ireland before traveling there. These poems were better understood by me after my trip and having experienced the country in person. ( )

4.2/5

First published in 1975 in the midst of the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland, Seamus Heaney's violent and uneasy collection North is a tense journey through the mind of a conflicted poet in a conflicted country.

Perhaps underlining this tension, the collection is structured into two distinct parts; the first relies heavily on mythology and history, the second on autobiographical experience. Both sections deal with violence and responses to that violence, focussing particularly on the responsibilities of the poet.

Dedicatory Poems

The collection is prefaced by two dedicatory poems, their homeliness and pastorality seemingly at odds with the rest of the collection. Yet both "Mossbawn" poems contain undertones of the violence that will come to define the rest of the collection, from the 'reddening stove' with its 'plaque of heat' in 'Sunlight' to the 'sharp knife' in 'The Seed Cutters'. These easily overlooked images present the difficult idea that Ireland is a nation cut through with violence: 'at the centre, a dark watermark', which is ever on the brink of spilling over.

North has in fact been criticised for condoning the violence in Northern Ireland in its transhistoricising and nationalising of violent acts. The connections drawn between the bog bodies; victims of ritual sacrifice and war, and the injured and dead of contemporary Ireland, bring a sense of the inevitable to the contemporary atrocities, as Ireland's Viking past, real and imagined, provides the steady drum-pulse that runs through the work. Heaney's portrayal of the historic dead further fuels these criticisms as the question emerges: is his aestheticising and sexualising of these images of violence somehow condoning its use?

Part I

Vikings

The poems of the first part to Heaney's collection draw from the early trade-links between Ireland and Scandinavia and the invading forces of Vikings that landed on Irish shores. Poems like 'Viking Dublin: Trial Pieces' and the title poem 'North' play up this connection to bring the violence of the past into Ireland's contemporary situation. History is presented not as a linear process but as a series of parallel lines to be read across from each other. Heaney expresses this most explicity in the poem 'Belderg' where he writes of the 'accrued growth rings/ Of iron, flint and bronze', collapsing three pre-historic ages one on top of the another. This collapsing occurs again in 'Viking Dublin: Trial pieces' where the Biblical Flood is conflated with the Viking invasion.

Read the rest of this review at A Hermit's Progress: https://ahermitsprogress.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/seamus-heaneys-north/ ( )

Heaney's language is as careful and apparently effortless as usual--the detail-based poems here paint thought-provoking scenes and characters that are well worth the exploration for poetry lovers. While I can't say that each and every poem is one that drove me forward, there are some here that I'm sure to come back to repeatedly, and for me that's always the mark of a strong worthwhile collection. These poems do take some devotion and energy to pursue, but I'd absolutely recommend them to lovers of poetry and writers at large. ( )