'Prodigious' I think is the only word appropriate to this work. Prodigious in the skill, poise and maturity even of the poems written in the author's early 20s; prodigious in the depth and weight of its seriousness; prodigious in the exactitude, complexity, and colour of its imagery, and the sheer profusion thereof; prodigious in its structure and its tightness, its almost baroque development; prodigious in its knowledge of history, poetry, and sundry other liberal disciplines; prodigious in its range of subject matter; prodigious in its quantity and the sweep of the writing career it embodies. This is a prodigious body of poems - dense, intellectually and artistically accomplished. There is so much here to admire that it's almost possible to forget that poetry is something I used to love. And that's the problem I have with this work: I can see that it's good; I can see that it's very, very good; I can see what it does and how it does it and I can readily admit that half the poets I truly love can't do it half as cleverly or without considerably greater effort. But I can't love it. In fact, I can't remember a single line. It's almost too prodigious.