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“... much else of worth.’ He was perfectly aware of his reputation as a cantankerous grump: when Colin Burrow reviewed his collected poems in the LRB (20 February 2014), the piece was entitled ‘Rancorous Old Sod’, which actually mitigated a harsher self-description (‘rancorous, narcissistic old sod’). He is splendidly vituperative in this poem ...”

“... of the brown rat. One night, in the poultry part of old Gansevoort Market, alongside the Hudson, a burrow of them bit the throats of over three hundred broilers and ate less than a dozen. Before this part of the market was abandoned, in 1942, the rats practically had charge of it. Some of them nested in the drawers of desks. When the drawers were pulled ...”

“... To think back at all is to fall quickly, almost instinctively, on two names – Colin, the name of my adoptive father, and Maureen, the name of my adoptive mother – and on the significant word ‘adopted’, which has the weight of a name. Appended to this little trio of terms, like an intake of breath at the end of a short annoucement, is the nameless presence of the ‘birth mother’, as she’s mostly called by adoption experts: the first mother, that’s to say, also the eternal mother-in-waiting ...”

“... knew whereabout it would come in.’ The National Portrait Gallery has a fine snapshot (taken by Colin Matthew) of the architectural historian Howard Colvin in the ruins of Godstow Abbey: spectacles pushed up on his forehead, camera dangling from one hand, he looks down intently as he makes a neat entry in the notebook he has just fished from his pocket. I ...”

“... sensibility that has often illuminated studies of Jonson makes its mark, most prominently in Colin Burrow’s editing of the poetry. Jonson’s allusions are not merely noted but felt.* Yet how widely will the feeling travel? Has the decline of classical education shamed us by restricting Jonson’s appeal? Or is Jonson’s addiction to classical ...”