SOURCE: Dunn, Douglas. “Poetry and Criticism.” Spectator 230, no. 7549 (3 March 1973): 271.

In the following review of A Poetry Chronicle, Dunn asserts that Hamilton is a valuable critic, and praises his essays as admirably written.

Founding father of the ‘Greek Street cénacle,’ Ian Hamilton has been editing The Review and contributing to The Observer, TLS, London Magazine and other periodicals for just over ten years. The earliest of his collected reviews and essays is dated 1963, which could have been only a short time after he came down from Oxford with a traditionally indifferent degree. Somehow, somewhere, Hamilton learned how to read a book of poems, and we are the better for it. A Poetry Chronicle presents a level of seriousness, pertinacity and insight which is well worth having and may correct the damaging reputation he has acquired for planning new books of verse before they have a chance to get...