Seamus Heaney's New and Selected Poems 1966-1987 offers a generous selection of his poetry.

In addition to his skills as a poet, Heaney writes very lucid criticism. In The Government of the Tongue: Selected Prose 1978-1987, he discusses the work of Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and several Eastern European poets, among others. The introductory essay, "The Interesting Case of Nero, Chekhov's Cognac, and a Knocker," meditates upon Heaney's responsibilities as a poet and is particularly compelling.

Two good critical studies of Seamus Heaney's poetry are Seamus Heaney, edited and introduced by Harold Bloom, and Helen Vendler's Seamus Heaney. Vendler, a former colleague of Heaney's at Harvard, remains one of the most sympathetic and insightful readers of Heaney's work.

In The Rattle Bag: An Anthology of Poems, Seamus Heaney and fellow poet Ted Hughes offer their favorite poems. This lively anthology...