SOURCE: Imlah, Mick. “Other Men's Glowers.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 5168 (19 April 2002): 36.

In the following review of Against Oblivion, Imlah asserts that, while Hamilton's assessments of many of the poets included in this volume are bitingly critical, they are never unfair. Imlah further states that Hamilton's central concern in this book is with “the business of poetry,” the competitive squabbles among poets jostling for lasting status as literary greats.

A nice idea, if somewhat gimmicky”, was Ian Hamilton's own estimate of his last published project. Against Oblivion is a collection of forty-five obituary-length essays, appraising the lives and work of the twentieth century's most famous dead poets in English (with a representative sample of the writing of each), after the model of Doctor Johnson's Lives (1779-81). There is no tokenism: no Irish (though Patrick Kavanagh's current reputation is surely healthier than that, say, of James Wright); no Australian or...