Work as if you live in the early days of a better world -- Alasdair Gray via Dennis Lee

Ron Butlin is that rare breed - a poet who takes the novel form and shows it is ripe for reinvention. Playful, haunting and moving, this is writing of the highest quality. - Ian Rankin

The balance of passion and poise is a constant tension in Davis's work - PN Review

The last English modernist ? Guardian

Celebratory, mournful, critical and tender - Poetry London

His keen observation invokes an expanded cognition and a braver engagement with one's personhood. -- Liesl Jobson

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'

Ednyfed, king of Dyfed, his head was borne before us; his wine and beasts supplied our feasts, and his overthrow, our chorus. - Thomas Love Peacock 'The war song of Dinas Vawr'

How very mean a thing is a Duke; From all his ill-got honours flung, turned to that dirt from whence he sprung. - Jonathan Swift 'A satirical elegy on the death of a late famous general'