This collection looks at the developments in British poetry from the Movement until the present. The introduction not only provides a context for these changes but also argues that poetry criticism has been debilitated by the quest for political respectability, a trend which can only be reversed by reconsidering the idea of tradition. The essays themselves focus on general themes or individual authors. Written in a clear and informed manner, they provoke the reader into a fresh awareness of the nature of poetry and its relation to society.

Acknowledgements - Notes on Contributors - Introduction: Poetry, Politics and Tradition; G.Day - Basil Bunting: Briggflatts; D.Brown - Never Such Innocence Again: The Poetry of Philip Larkin; G.Day - Poetic Subjects: Tony Harrison and Peter Reading; N.Roberts - Salvaged from The Ruins: Ken Smith's Constellations; S.Smith - Dance of Being: The Poetry of Peter Redgrove; N.Roberts - Seamus Heaney: from Revivalism to Postmodernism; A.Davies - 'Some Sweet Disorder': The Poetry of Subversion on Paul Muldoon, Tom Paulin and Medbh McGuckian; E.Andrews - The Gaelic Renaissance: Sorley Maclean and Derick Thomson; C.Whyte - Edwin Morgan: Messages and Transformations; R.Watson - 'Half of My Seeing': The English Poetry of Iain Crichton Smith; C.Milton - Vernon Watkins and R.S. Thomas; D.Brown - Anthologies of Women's Poetry: Canon Breakers: Canon Makers; J.Dowson - Women Poets and 'Women's Poetry': Fleur Adcock, Gillian Clarke and Carol Romeos; L.Pykett - They Say, They Say, They Say: Some New Voices of the Nineties; M.Faherty - Index