There's something in me that insists it sings / Freely, for nothing, the lovely, lonely art / Called poetry, an art you understand. (from 'Venezuela' by Douglas Dunn)

What thou lovest well remains, / the rest is dross / What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee / What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage -- Ezra Pound, Canto LXXXI

A poet confident in her mastery of the medium -- J.M. Coetzee

Schimke's poetry whispers, hollers, moans, bends and extends unexpectedly and beyond expectation - Malika Ndlovu

S. J. Fowler's poems deal with disjunctions and interjections. They present us with a world that moves fast and often violently, where the lyrical impulse flowers, breaks and flowers again, too briefly to assert its full syntactic argument....Fowler's poetics are an open space packed with brilliant intensities. George Szirtes

The last English modernist ? Guardian

A mature, considered voice - Kathleen Jamie

As one long prepared, and graced with courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. - C.P. Cavafy 'The God Abandons Antony'

Why that I cannot tell, said he, "But 'twas a famous victory." - Robert Southey, 'After Blenheim'

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him. - Christopher Smart 'My cat Jeoffrey'

Condemn'd to hope's delusive mine, as on we toil from day to day, by sudden blasts, or slow decline, our social comforts drop away. - Samuel Johnson 'On the death of Dr Robert Levet'