Great Regulars: Here then is a poem so fabulously composed

and suspended that its ordering, its empathies, its sense of emotional time and lyric timing, and its ability to create restrained intimacy in the face of trauma is perhaps unmatched. Concerned with the death of the poet's younger brother, Seamus Heaney's "Mid-Term Break" is a sustained, poignant utterance. It has aplomb and coolness. It has presence of mind and nerve. It has deportment and it has horror. It has finally, in a word, poise.

"Mid-Term Break"

Seamus Heaney

from David Biespiel: The Oregonian: Poetry: Seamus Heaney's 'Mid-Term Break' is a shining example of the School of Poise

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