Nobody draws you in with a tidal force, immersing you into a collage of water stories taken from the Odyssey.

It is always a joy to find good writing on nature and in this collection, Nan Shepherd’s generosity reminds why “It’s a grand thing to get leave to live”.

The present always negotiates the past, and in Men in the Off Hours we have Virginia Woolf in conversation with Thucydides. With characteristic wit and sensuality, Anne Carson reminds us that “the fact of the matter for humans is imperfection”.

These poems - addressed to no one and to all of us - remind us of the contingency, vulnerability and hope in all of our messages. They remind you why she is one of America’s most beloved poets.

After a long winter sometimes you just have to hit the road and meet the arrival of Spring. The mixture of place-writing and poetry follows Thomas cycling in the suspension between the seasons, on the eve of the Great War and responds all receptive eye and nerves to that most precipitous moment.

Selima Hill's poetry has been called wanton, wildly imaginative, tender, intelligent, dangerous, defiant, subversive and startling. All these qualities are strongly present throughout "Gloria", a collection mischievously brilliant.