This volume is a necessary new selection from the work of Seamus Heaney, taking into account recent publications and his work as a translator, offering a more generous selection than previous volumes. Opened Ground: Poems 1966-1996 comes as close as possible to being a "Collected Poems" as the author desires. It replaces New Selected Poems 1966-1987, offering a fuller selection from each of the volumes represented there and adding large sections of those published since, along with examples of his work as a translator from Greek, Latin, Italian, and other languages. The book concludes with “Crediting Poetry”, the speech with which Seamus Heaney accepted his 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded to him, according to the words of the Swedish Academy of Letters, for his "works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth".