The Spirit Level is Seamus Heaney’s first book of poems since he was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature. It comes five years after his most recent collection, Seeing things, which was described by reviewers as a ’triumph’ and a ’masterpiece’, and shows both the poet’s alert response to new political realities and his continuing concern with matters of family history and spiritual well-being. Elegies, translations and reworkings of old stories sit alongside celebrations of what simply endures, whether in memory or in actuality. A sternly uncompromising note is occasionally sounded, but the main thrust is always towards the state of balance and measure suggested by the title.