Station Island (poetry)

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1st edition (publ. Faber)

Station Island (1984) is a poetry collection by Seamus Heaney, who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The title refers to Station Island in Donegal, Ireland, a famous site of pilgrimage from the Middle Ages to the present day. The collection is thematically concerned with the quest for self-identity, whether spiritual, socio-political, or vocational.

The second section, also entitled "Station Island", is an autobiographical account of Heaney's second journey to the island. Here he considers the purpose and power of a poet's occupation, especially in regards to how he or she might speak to political issues- in his case, The Troubles in Northern Ireland in particular.

The third section, 'Sweeney Redivivus', was stimulated by Heaney's work on the medieval Irish poem Buile Shuibhne ('The Madness of Sweeney'), a translation of which he published under the title Sweeney Astray in 1983.

Heaney has been recorded reading this collection on the Seamus Heaney Collected Poems album. He also read from this book during his Saturday morning readings at the Royal Academy during Peter Edward's exhibition.

Contents

Part One
The Underground
La Toilette
Sloe Gin
Away from it All
Chekhov on Sakhalin
Sandstone Keepsake
Shelf Life
A Migration
Last Look
Remembering Malibu
Making Strange
The Birthplace
Changes
An Ulster Twilight
A Bat on the Road
A Hazel Stick for Catherine Ann
A Kite for Michael and Christopher
The Railway Children
Sweetpea
An Aisling in the Burren
Widgeon
Sheelagh na Gig
The Loaning
The Sandpit
The King of the Ditchbacks
Part Two
Station Island
Station Island
Part Three
Sweeney Redivivus
The First Gloss
Sweeney Redivivus
Unwinding
In the Beech
The First Kingdom
The First Flight
Drifting Off
Alerted
The Cleric
The Hermit
The Master
The Scribes
A Waking Dream
In the Chestnut Tree
Sweeney's Returns
Holly
An Artist
The Old Icons
In Illo Tempore
On the Road


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