<iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-K3L4M3" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">

Books

Seamus Heaney: no shuffling or cutting — just turning over aces

Craig Raine pays homage to the genius of Seamus Heaney in a review of his New Selected Poems

13 December 2014

9:00 AM

13 December 2014

9:00 AM

New Selected Poems: 1966–1987 Seamus Heaney

Faber, pp.256, £18.99, ISBN: 9780571321742

New Selected Poems: 1988–2013 Seamus Heaney

Faber, pp.240, £18.99, ISBN: 9780571321711

The impersonator — Rory Bremner, Steve Coogan — speaks, in different voices, to a single primitive pleasure centre in his audience. Counterintuitively, we like the imposition of imposture. We connive at deceit, at replication, for the release of neurotransmitters, the flood of endorphins — the brandies of the brain. I once heard Peter Ustinov on a chat show replicate the sound of an electric bell being pressed.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Subscribe for just $2 a week

Try a month of The Spectator Australia absolutely free and without commitment. Not only that but – if you choose to continue – you’ll pay just $2 a week for your first year.

  • Unlimited access to spectator.com.au and app
  • The weekly edition on the Spectator Australia app
  • Spectator podcasts and newsletters
  • Full access to spectator.co.uk
Or

Unlock this article

REGISTER

'New Selected Poems: 1966–1987', £16.99 and 'New Selected Poems:
1988–2013', £16.99 are available from the Spectator Bookshop. Tel: 08430 600033

You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it. Try your first month for free, then just $2 a week for the remainder of your first year.


Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator Australia readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Close