About the Book The Irish poets 11th collection travels widely in time and space, visiting the sites of the classical world and revisiting the poets childhood: rural electrification and the light of ancient evenings are reconciled within the orbit of a single lifetime. Book Synopsis The powerful collection by the bestselling translator of Beowulf In the finland of perch, the fenland of alder, on air That is water, on carpets of Bann stream, on hold In the everything flows and steady go of the world. --from Perch Seamus Heaneys collection travels widely in time and space, visiting the sites of the classical world and revisiting the poets childhood: rural electrification and the light of ancient evenings are reconciled within the orbit of a single lifetime. This is a book 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. Electric Light ranges from short takes to conversation poems. The pre-Socratic wisdom that everything flows is held in tension with the elegizing of friends and fellow poets. These gifts of recollection renew the poets calling to assign things their proper names; once again Heaney can be heard exting his word hoard and roll call in this, his eleventh collection. Review Quotes Heaneys status as one of the most significant poets writing in English and the greatest Irish poet since Yeats in already well established. Electric Light is further confirmation of his power to capture and transcend the immediacy of the moment, to find the stillness at the heart of things. -- Joe Treasure, Los Angeles Times Book Review Electric Light includes poems that are sparks of fulminating retrospection . . . To say it the best I can . . . [Heaney] exercises poetrys power to proclaim truth and the artists power to make us know that it is a truth we cant be without . . . Engagement is the heart of a poem . . . and Mr. Heaneys strongest engagement in this collection is with time: the past that lives, the present that dies. -- Richard Eder, The New York Times Arguably the finest poet now writing in English. -- James Shapiro, The New York Times Book Review About the Author Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. His poems, plays, translations, and essays include Opened Ground , Electric Light , Beowulf , The Spirit Level , District and Circle , and Finders Keepers . Robert Lowell praised Heaney as the most important Irish poet since Yeats.