Previously unpublished poems to be included in new Heaney collection

A trove of previously unpublished poems by the late Irish poet Seamus Heaney is to be printed alongside his collected and uncollected poems for the first time.

- Ella Creamer

The Poems of Seamus Heaney will feature his 12 collections interspersed with poems published in magazines, journals and newspapers, plus 25 poems selected from Heaney's large number of unpublished works.

The unearthed poems include Chair, Pocket Knife, Guitar - published for the first time above right - which Heaney wrote for the wedding of one of his sons, Christopher, in July 2004. Many of the unpublished poems are housed in the National Library of Ireland (NLI), where the poet bequeathed his literary papers before his death in 2013.

Whether or not they should be published was an "absolutely core question", said Matthew Hollis, a poet and a long-term editor of Heaney who worked with the poet's family and fellow editors Rosie Lavan and Bernard O'Donoghue over the last decade to put together the collection, published by Faber tomorrow.

"If an author chose not to publish a poem, does anyone else have the right to do so?"