On the latest Heaney

Themes of age and youth link up in Seamus Heaney's latest collection, Human Chain, writes Troy Jollimore in the Washington Post. The book is elegiac and yet fresh, marked by Heaney's signature musicality. Visiting the house of a late friend, Heaney feels

Intruder almost, wanting to take flight
Yet well aware that here was no danger,
Only withdrawal, a not unwelcoming
Emptiness, as in a midnight hangar
On an overgrown airfield in high summer.

For Jollimore, the prospect of Heaney's aging prompts a touching conclusion.

There is so much life in "Human Chain" that one wishes [Heaney] were, in fact, just starting out. It is wonderful, and heartbreaking, to think of the books this promising poet might go on to write, given another 50 years or so.