Hardcover. NY, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1st US, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in an unclipped dust jacket, with fading to spine. The sixth collection of original poetry written by Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. It is dedicated to the Northern Irish playwright Brian Friel. The collection was first published in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1984 by Faber & Faber and was then published in America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1985.The poems in the collection are generally focused on the role of the poet and their relationship to history and politics but, more specifically, are also a platform through which Heaney can examine his own complex relationship with the sectarian violence of The Troubles in Northern Ireland (including his decision to move his family out of the north to the Republic of Ireland in 1972). Previous owner's inscription on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.