“What's poetry, if it's worth its salt, / but a phrase men can pass from hand to mouth?”

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)

A poet of rare lyric intensity - Oxford Companion to English Literature

Dear beauteous Death! the jewel of the just...

pared-down precision and scorching intensity - Helen Dunmore