From the painful, meticulous 1950s efforts to the brilliant shimmer of the eponymous sequence, Alfred Alvarez's poems are always interesting, subtle and wonderfully sensuous. In other words, he is fun, and free of the ghastly inhibitions or smalltype garrulity that British poets have made their own…. Yet it is only in the latest cycle of poems, Autumn to Autumn, that his voice sounds clear and no longer afraid of what others may think or guess. These are poems that one can, and I did, read over and over. At last a poet is willing to repeat words for the sheer pleasure of hearing them twice, to allow himself luxury and richness. So once again poetry can be beautiful.

The difference between these and the earlier poems is not in the texture of the language, always skilful and pliable. It is thematic inadequacy that dates them. The familiar subjects...