Seamus Heaney's new volume is Field Work, containing poems written since North in 1976. North was a superb volume; I suppose Field Work is even better, though it is possible that I merely hear more of his voice as I come to know him better…. Heaney's land is Ireland …; but what Ireland? He is a northerner who lives in the south; he writes the English inherited from centuries of oppression, sweetened by the excellence of earlier Anglo-Irish poetry. These conflicts make for energy, I suspect. If Heaney is the best Irish poet since Yeats, a sentiment often expressed, it is less known that there are half a dozen other living Irishmen who could run for the title without fear of disgrace.

Heaney's subjects in Field Work range from troubles in Ireland to skunks in California, but his geographical spread never suggests the tourist. The voice speaks of love with...