In 'Tradition and the Individual Talent,' T. S. Eliot warns against the tendency to single out and praise those aspects of a writer's work 'in which he least resembles anyone else', adding that 'the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously'. This dictum is relevant in the case of Derek Mahon whose new collection, Poems 1962–1978, includes most of his previously collected work, as well as some twenty-three new poems, most of which are printed in the latter part of the book.

Many of the poems assert the immortality of MacNiece and Auden and reveal the powerful presence of Samuel Beckett. The influence of non-English speaking poets, especially the French, is also evident, both indirectly and in the fine imitations such as 'The Condensed Shorter Testament', a reworking of his earlier rendering of Villon...