Seamus Heaney's unpublished poems to be released read one exclusively here

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

"However, given that Heaney had passed the poems to the NLI, we didn't get a sense that he wished them to remain private, said Hollis. Some of the poems they looked at had not reached a state of completion that perhaps Seamus himself would have been satisfied with, which is why he may have set them aside. The chosen unpublished poems are included in the appendix, so as to separate them from the works published in Heaney's lifetime."

"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with poems published in magazines, journals and newspapers, plus 25 poems selected from Heaney's large number of unpublished works.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 below 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 Many of the unpublished poems are housed in the National Library of Ireland (NLI), where the poet bequeathed his literary papers before his death in 2013."

The Poems of Seamus Heaney assembles his 12 collections alongside poems published in magazines, journals and newspapers, and adds 25 previously unpublished poems selected from his papers. The unearthed poems include pieces written for private occasions, including poems Heaney composed for his son Christopher's wedding in July 2004. Many unpublished items are held at the National Library of Ireland, where Heaney bequeathed his literary papers before his death in 2013. Editors Matthew Hollis, Rosie Lavan and Bernard O'Donoghue worked with Heaney's family to prepare the volume, placing unpublished pieces in an appendix and providing commentary to situate the poems.

Read at www.theguardian.com