Publisher's Synopsis
With eight superb collections of poems as well as a Carcanet Selected, editor of the important Cambridge school journal Perfect Bound in the 1970s, author of three monographs on twentieth century poetry and several collections of translations, Peter Robinson is a major poet unjustly marginalized by circumstances. Robinson's poetry is subtle, penetrating and alert in its depth and breadth: capable of meticulous, expansive cultural critique as well as moving attention to difficult, 'ordinary' life experiences. The febrile fields in which the work operates - poetry of the North, 1970s avant-garde, Cambridge school, engagement with art and postwar culture, poetry about Italy/Europe, Japan and travel poetry of 'abroad', poetry of intense domestic relational crisis, hospital texts and fatherhood poems - are complemented by critical interrogation of the responsibilities and ethics of poetry in the twentieth century as well as the championing of European poets in the translation enterprises. It is because the work is so complexly 'non-aligned' and hard to place on the cultural map of contemporary poetry that we are sure that the volume will be a rewarding and stimulating companion to this excellent poet.
