Electric Light

Heaney's new collection travels widely in space and time, visiting the sites of the classical world, revisiting the poet's childhood: rural electrification and the light of ancient evenings are reconciled within the orbit of a single lifetime.

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Travelling widely in time and space, Seamus Heaney's new collection is about origins (not least the origins of words) and oracles: the places where things start from, the ground of understanding - whether in Arcadia or Anahorish, the sanctuary at Epidaurus or the Bann valley in County Derry. In works which range from short takes to conversation poems, the pre-Socratic wisdom that everything flows is held in tension with the fixities of remembrance: elegizing childhood, friends and fellow poets. These gifts of recollection renew the poet's calling to assign to things their proper names; once again Heaney can be heard extending his word-hoard and rollcall.