A Boy Driving His Father to Confession. Surrey: The Scepter Press (Frensham), 1970. Limited Edition. Pp, 12. Plain stiff titled wrappers, short biography on rear endpaper. A nice bright copy.

Limited Edition of 150 Numbered Copies. This copy is number 47 of only 50 copies, Signed by Seamus Heaney. 

First published in ‘Phoenix’, March 1967 and is reprinted here with revisions.

A confessional poem, previously uncollected, explores a son’s Oedipal animosity and his rejection of his father’s Catholic rituals. Influenced by Robert Lowell in both its form (heroic couplets) and its content, the piece was workshopped with the Belfast Group in April 1965. This informal collective of students, faculty, and local writers gathered at the home of Philip Hobsbaum, a lecturer at Queen’s University.

 This is not only one of the first limited editions put out by Heaney, but also marks the first separate appearance of one of his early masterpieces

[Brandes & Durkan A7].