The Haw Lantern

Widely and justly celebrated for his flawless handling of the lyric, Seamus Heaney is here shown venturing into new imaginative territory. Poems exploring the theme of loss, and in particular a sonnet sequence concerning the death of the poet's mother, are joined in The Haw Lantern by meditations on the conscience of the writer and exercises in an allegorical vein that will both surprise and delight the many admirers of his previous work.

'More than other poet since Wordsworth he can make us understand that the outside world is not outside, but what we are made of.' John Carey, Sunday Times



Seamus Heaney was born in County Derry in Northern Ireland.

Death of a Naturalist, his first collection of poems, appeared in 1966 and since then he has published poetry, criticism and translations - including

Beowulf (1999) - which have established him as one of the leading poets now at work. In 1995 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

District and Circle (2006) was awarded the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2006.

Stepping Stones, a book of interviews conducted by Dennis O'Driscoll, appeared in 2008. In 2009 he received the David Cohen Prize for Literature.