Astonishment

'While Anne Stevenson is most certainly, and rightly, regarded as one of the major poets of our period, it has never been by virtue of this or that much anthologised poem, but by the work or mind as a whole. It is not so much a matter of the odd lightning-struck tree as of an entire landscape, and that landscape is always humane, intelligent and sane, composed of both natural and rational elements, and amply furnished with patches of wit and fury, which only serve to bring out the humanity' - George Szirtes, London Magazine. 'One of the most important poets active in England today - she presents us with a complex reality where an intently sensory world inhabited by wilful resistant people is overlaid by ghosts, ideas, and spectral emissions: the historical, philosophical, and scientific - all dimensions of what obviously isn't there and yet can't be denied' - Emily Grosholz, Michigan Quarterly. 'Her knowledge of botany, ornithology and other natural sciences is impressive, but her talent is for fusing the disciplines into an honest and humane account of our world, and expressing this through rhythm and form - She is wise without portentousness, her technique faultless and her imagination fiery, political and fresh' - Carol Rumens, Independent.