[Betjeman] is the poet of rus in urbe. A good thing, too: the inherent contradictions of the suburb (not to be confused with Academia) too seldom receive a hearing in contemporary literature, despite the number of writers who must live in one. Betjeman celebrates "old brick garden walls" and "the mist of green about the elms / In earliest leaf-time." Alas, mortar crumbles, and leaves fall, and though he's gentle or even affectionately comic in his recording of these changes, Betjeman's celebration is always a kind of elegy. There is a touch of something Roman in his poetry, as if he were a senator following the custom of releasing a dove for luck—and knowing it flies only for itself. Betjeman's great talent is to hold two opposing attitudes together without technical distress….

In the same way, he simultaneously eulogizes and scolds, pities and mocks and adores the people...