Seamus Heaney new collection of poetry

I seem to be all things Seamus Heaney at the mo. Note last blog. But had to blog about his much awaited new collection "Human Chain" which is out on the 2nd of September published by Faber. I've had a sneak preview of a few of the new poems. 

One called "Miracle" deals with the aftermath of his stroke in 2007. He writes about being lifted up onto a stretcher by two Donegal ambulance men, and likens it to the Bible story of the crippled man whose friends, trying to get him close to Jesus on a healing visit to Capernaum, raise up him onto the roof of the house, then remove the tiles in order to lower him down through the hole.

In the same poem he expresses his love for his wife Marie as she holds his hand in the back of the same ambulance as it drives him to Letterkenny Hospital.

Another, one of my new Heaney favourites, is called "In the Attic". The attic is in his house, where he does all his writing. In the poem he is climbing the stairs towards it. In a twist on his famous "Follower" poem, he is now the older man. 

"As I age and blank on names/As my uncertainty on stairs/Is more and more the lightheadness of a cabin boy's first time on the rigging".

He is far from uncertain or lightheaded. I can't wait to read more from "Human Chain", and meet him when he's here in Belfast. He's booked to appear at the Feile an Phobail in West Belfast in August and Aspects Literature Festival in Bangor in September.

I also had a strange dream about him the other night which involved me interviewing him and catching sight of, under the legs of his suit trousers, a shiny bright red pair of doc martens. I had taken cold medication before going to bed so attribute the surreal nature of the dream to that.

However, when I see him, I will have to find out if he has, at any point in his life, ever owned a pair of red DMs!