The Moon, the Chief Hairdesser (Highlights)

A new collection of poems by this innovative English poet from the middle generation; his first large collection in ten years. "Do you think there's too much archaeology? Too many people need to dig things up and find them out. It's not necessary to some people and more than necessary for others. There's an industry around it ... It's the doing that's important, not the knowing about the doing. Because that's second. So, obviously some poets are more articulate than others, but articulacy can hide things . . . There's a lot about, sounds impressive but misses the point, floundering around. Maybe that's not what you should be looking at. So I'm not really interested in an archaeology of understanding . . ." - (Ralph Hawkins, from an interview with Ian Davidson)