HEANEY, Seamus. Eleven Poems. Belfast: Festival Publications, Queen’s University of Belfast. 1966.
8vo. Original wrappers, the second issue with the purple ten-point sun figure to the front panel in “blackish purple” (Brandes and Durkan); unpaginated, pp. [20], including front and rear covers as per Brandes and Durkan; a few light marks to front and rear; signed and dated (December 1982 or 83 [final number corrected]) by Seamus Heaney to verso of front cover; a very near fine copy internally bright and clean, without any creasing or damage.
A signed and dated copy of the second issue with ten-point sun figure to front panel rather than the nine of the first; published a year after the first issue, the second is seemingly less common in signed state.
First published in November 1965, Eleven Poems predates Heaney’s first full collection, Death of a Naturalist (1966), by a few months. All but one of the eleven poems (“Peter Street at Bankside”) reappear in the larger volume. Heaney was at the time on the committee of the Belfast Festival and suggested a pamphlet series to Michael Emmerson, who ran it. The rear panel explains that the pamphlet “is one in a series to be published monthly and to include [list of nine poets including, Heaney, Michael Longley, and Derek Mahon]”, each volume priced “Two shillings and sixpence […]; subscription for series one pound (including postage)”. The first three instalments featured, respectively, poems by Michael Longley, Heaney and Derek Mahon. “They look as if they were just xeroxed and stapled”, Heaney later recalled, “but they were the start of something.”
See: Dennis O'Driscoll, Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, London, 2008.
Brandes and Durkan A1b.
SKU: 2124089