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HIS SQUAT PEN DID NOT REST
I'll dig with it ..with these words Heaney closed his first poem, in his first published collection in 1966 which helped make his reputation as a major poet in the English language. He has contuinued 'to dig' so entertainingly ever since , with his 'squat pen'. Why is this? For me, the visual simplicity of his style ranks him alongside ,modern poets of the stature of W C Williams. A style of short poetry,so often in triplet, quatrain and quintain form brings a succinctness of thought which combined with the commonplace themes leaves an indelible impression on the reader. None more so perhaps, than the evocative 'Mid-Term Break' which so defines Heaney's poetic dna of these early collections and compares so favourably with Tennyson's short masterpiece 'Crossing the bar'. This selection, from the first six of the poet's collections published from 1966 through to 1975 is fully representative ,of Heaney's terse, succinct reflective verse ,including a longer sequenced poem of fishing exampled in 'a Lough Neagh Sequence'. The only down side, selected poem collections are inevitably editorially representative in some way and thus are never a satisfying substitute for reading each collection itself to the serious poetry afficionado.
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