SOURCE: Lucas, John. “A Rose for the Betrayed World.” New Statesman 1, no. 12 (26 August 1988): 38.

In the following review, Lucas looks at the political nature of poems in Szirtes's collection Metro.

At the end of “Five Men”, a poem which records with level, factual honesty the assassination of political dissidents (or so one assumes them to be), Zbigniew Herbert remarks that a poet can also “once again / in dead earnest / offer to the betrayed world / a rose.” He does not intend to mock such earnestness. But then what is the subject for poetry? Or rather, is it possible to find a procedure—a tone, a style, a formal manner—that makes possible the negotiation of subject-matter might seem to lie beyond the possibilities that poetry can encompass.

In his new book, George Szirtes is engaged with these issues, not because he debates them but because they are prompted by what...