"Thwaite was respected and praised for the clarity, precision and depth of his verse, but the underlying pillars of his work – his marriage, his faith and his love for archaeology – gave a distinctiveness to his poems that was unique among the writing of his contemporaries." Eric Homberger Guardian

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"There are, of course, dangers in that desire to include ‘us’ with the writer’s own views. These dangers are that making us all complicit does actually become finger-pointing by any other name. It says that ‘I’ recognize these dangers and you do not. It is me who is holding up the mirror and who shifts the emotional burden on to you, the reader. Perhaps, Hirshfield recognises that danger in the next poem in the book, ‘The Bowl’." Ian Pople The Manchester Review

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"Our eyes were opened and when, years later, I read Rimbaud I recognised like an augury his discovery of another entire dimension." John McAuliffe Kaleidoscope

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"Although Troubles tourism is now a vital aspect of Belfast’s economy, you’d struggle to find an elected representative who’d live within this particular attraction. To paraphrase that well-worn phrase which politicians are wont to use: is sauce for the goose ever sauce for the gander?" Scott McKendry Irish Times / Irish Journal of Anthropology

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"Returning to Proust is a little like meeting up with my former self. I’m surprised to find we like the same things. I thought she was a terrible fool. Now I go back to find out what it was like to be her." Martina Evans Irish Times

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"So a new book arrives hoping to get reviewed. It’s glossy and embellished with superlative recommendations, as they all are. I’ve never heard of the author, and I immediately think “here comes another…” But the interesting part of this story is that if, on opening the book to get some idea of the kind of writing it holds, I immediately have the impression of modernity, I automatically think it’s probably by an older poet. And so it is." Peter Riley Fortnightly Review

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"Indeed, much of Stepanova’s play with older forms and past literary traditions is rooted in her broader interrogation of collective memory, a political project she tries to complicate, and perhaps even dismantle, through poetry. In Russia, Putin’s government has manipulated mass media and textbooks in an effort to rewrite the country’s history, with an eye toward stoking Russian nationalism and recasting former authoritarian leaders, including Stalin, in a more favorable light. In “Spolia,” (translated by Dugdale), Stepanova satirizes militarism’s penchant for anachronism to make her point about the malleability of history, using the very melody that soldiers march to: “say the word that don’t belong // put in on and march along // forget the old and step anew // and the word will march with you.”" Jennifer Wilson Poetry

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"How then to resist an increasingly toxic intellectual culture without succumbing either to its dynamics or to despair? Adorno concludes Minima Moralia with a bracing challenge: “The only philosophy which can be responsibly practiced in the face of despair is the attempt to contemplate all things as they would present themselves from the standpoint of redemption.”" Alexander Stern The Hedgehog Review

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"I believe, a bit weirdly, that somewhere each poem exists perfectly made, and it is towards this I am, literally, fighting. I don’t know where these perfections are lurking, under the bed, in heaven, in a parallel brain if I have one, somewhere Platonic, and I’m sure Jung would have something to say about the idea, but why else do I scratch and search so compulsively, and remain so deeply unsatisfied until it is Right? The theory is, I tell myself when I feel it especially ridiculous, perfectly feasible because when I feel I do get it right, or , more tellingly, know that it is right, and this can be an exhausting process in its intensity, it is Right. Which means I have done it, and found that thing under the bed, or in heaven. The exultation and joy experienced at this point is, for me, the deep satisfaction of writing." John Gallas Medium

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"Repetition creates a linguistic labyrinth where we get lost because every turn looks familiar – looks like a repetition – yet, instead of an exit we walk deeper into the spell of history. I’m shocked by this spell every time I write. A lyrical voice is a voice out of control and a lyrical poet repeats because she is shocked by what she said when she lost control of her voice. She repeats in hope that the words will come out differently on a second try, on a third try. She repeats because she hopes for a rupture of old patterns, a possibility of a truly new beginning." Valzhyna Mort The Poetry Review

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"When I started out trying to be a poet, Roy Fisher was the only guy I had. I mean he was the only person whose work was obviously influenced by American and European poetry. I actually corresponded with him as well though I never met him. The standard thing was you had to write something that sounded a bit like Philip Larkin. Philip Larkin is a wonderful poet, but that was not what I wanted to write." John Ash PN Review

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"Just as in 3.15, the poet of the fragment looks back on his past achievement, the leve carmen (17) beloved by his readership (ever the feminist, Ovid stresses his success specifically among virginibus … pulchris, 16) and looks forward to a greater work (magna meta, 15; cf. area maior, Am. 3.15.18). " Katharina Volk • Antigone

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"Berryman resented the “confessional” label, but it makes sense to think of The Dream Songs alongside Lowell’s Life Studies (1959), W.D. Snodgrass’s Heart’s Needle (1959), Anne Sexton’s To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960), and Sylvia Plath’s posthumous Ariel (1965). For all of these poets’ many differences, and notwithstanding the craft that went into each of their volumes (these were far from artless confessions), the books tend to follow a similar arc: the wayward poet makes a putatively shameful disclosure about his or her life, usually involving some breakdown of the nuclear family (the given family of childhood, the made one of adulthood, or, often, both), only to have the form within which they make that disclosure, the well-made lyric poem, lead them back, by poem’s end, into the boundaries of respectable domesticity." Kamran Javadizadeh NYRB

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