…a flagging list in the 1990s with new talents such as Simon Armitage, Lavinia Greenlaw and Don Paterson. Alongside his day jobs, Reid’s own poetry has quietly asserted its quality…

…Burneau (1994), was short-listed for the Whitbread First Novel Award. Moon Country (1996) is an account of his visit to Iceland with the poet Simon Armitage, tracing the travels of…

…stylistically diverse, recalling Seamus Heaney in its atmospheric descriptiveness and Louis MacNeice in its clear-eyed melancholy, but also Wallace Stevens in its reflective, ecological dimensions, and Simon Armitage in its…

…our own. Throughout, O’Riordan’s polished, confident tones serve to both illuminate and add gravity, bolstering Simon Armitage’s endorsement of O’Riordan’s “painter’s eye for detail and pianist’s touch for sounding the…

…of ‘Lebiyska Mova’ show an admirable technical ability that confirms Simon Armitage’s description of his work as “passionately, precisely and lyrically conveyed.” With Batchelor’s native Northumbria audible in his reading…

…pointers are needed. His reading is measured, giving his words due weight, and demonstrating the truth of Simon Armitage’s praise for “poems that speak with a sense of purpose and…