Tom Raworth stands out as perhaps the most elusive--and at the same time the most sensitive to contemporary realities--of postwar poets in Britain. English critic Eric Mottram has called him "the best we have," and his reputation in America, particularly among those who also read recent American poetry, is unequaled by any of his fellow countrymen. The poetry and prose of Tom Raworth is marked by a razor-sharp attention to detail and mercurial mental shifts. When he reads his poetry, his delivery is the fastest in the business, but what is remarkable is the range of expression he gets without slowing the pace. His collaborations with artists and printers make his books some of the loveliest, and oddest, to be found.

Thomas Moore Raworth's parents were Roman Catholic, his Irish mother by birth, his father by conversion. When Tom was two his father left to serve in World...