A tune that one has once heard and liked [that] seems to haunt the mind and will not be dismissed until entirely mastered.

He treasures the grain of the speaking voice -- Robert Crawford

Beautiful Girls is not a book for the faint-hearted: it will survive as testament to poetry's force in overcoming - Chris McCabe

Poetry is the most elemental of the written arts.

Woman! too long degraded, scorned, opprest; / O born to rule in partial Law's despite, / Resume thy native empire o'er the breast! Anna Laetitia Barbauld, 'The Rights of Women'

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'Ode to a Skylark'

Air falls under the heavy yoke of bells - 'Sunday Morning', Denis Glover

Through the sparseness and compression, Laird generates a haunting trove of subtle and enriching tonal orchestrations - Alan Gillis