Tony Harrison's is one of the most original voices in postwar English poetry. Born into the nonliterary world of the British working class, he has through his work as a poet and translator developed a technical skill of extraordinary brilliance, wit, and vigor, which has recently allowed him to support in his poetry themes of immense personal and historical pain. As a translator, he has enormous range; he has had equal success with Racine, Molière, and Aeschylus, always rendering the plays completely new while retaining the essential qualities of the originals.

Of poets, he is the least insular yet the most rooted. He has been, and continues to be, a traveler par excellence through time, languages, countries, social classes. His poetry has mirrored these wanderings--he is very much a poet of places--but the main pull of his poetry has been toward his birthplace and its people...