From front cover -- "With this new collection Seamus Heaney has found a myth which allows him to articulate a vision of Ireland -- its people, history and landscape -- and which gives the book direction, cohesion and cumulative power. Here the Irish experience is refracted through images drawn from different parts of the Northern European experience, and the idea of the north allows the poet to conteplate the violence on his home ground in relation to memories of the Scandinavian and English invasions which have marked Irish history so indelibly. These poems are more profound and authoritative, more varied in range and subject matter, than any of his previous collections. North is an outstanding achievement.