With No Continuing City another young Irish poet emerges from the British end of the path beaten by Seamus Heaney. Michael Longley is going to have to get used to being mentioned in the same breath with Mr. Heaney: it is one of those misleading compliments that build you up while they slow you down. "A Personal Statement", one of the best poems in the book, is dedicated to Mr. Heaney, so one assumes that they are friends. There are certainly qualities they share: tight formal discipline, lion-in-your-lap evocation of things seen, and an utter rejection of the bogtrotting mythtery of the Celtic revival in all its phases. You feel with either man that a poem about the German light industry grouped around Shannon airport wouldn't be beyond his thematic boundaries. But there are non-Heaney qualities in this book that are immediately, sharply interesting in their own right...