Lazy Sunday afternoon

Shorter days do at least mean more time for catching up with reading, and that's pretty much all I've managed to do today.

Before I got onto the Sunday papers, I still had yesterday's Guardian Review to read. Now the Guardian's far from perfect, but it's still the only one of the broadsheets that takes poetry remotely seriously (to the extent of actually running at least one review each week, I mean - most of the others manage a once-a-month round-up).

Yesterday's main review was of Hodge, the fifth collection by Welsh poet Oliver Reynolds. As reviewer David Wheatley points out, it's not exactly hot on the heels of his fourth book, which came out in 1999, and Reynolds seems to be living proof that winning an Eric Gregory Award and being published by Faber isn't always a charm against obscurity.

But anyway, I've always had a soft spot for Reynolds. I bought his first three collections in a secondhand bookshop in Leicester quite a few years ago, when I really didn't know anything about him (or the contemporary British poetry scene). I then ordered his fourth book, Almost (his best, in my opinion), and I've enjoyed all four a couple of times each. If he re-emerges into the limelight a little, I won't be complaining.

There was also a piece by Nicholas Lezard about the anthology A Poet's Guide To Britain, edited by Owen Sheers. I haven't read the book, and in all honesty I doubt I'll buy it, however much I enjoyed Sheers' TV series on the same theme last year. One of its strengths was that he didn't always go for the most obvious choices, but Lezard makes the point that the anthology leaves out Geoffrey Hill and Basil Bunting, which suggests it might be steering clear of what's seen as 'difficult' territory. Still, one to flick through next time I'm in a bookshop.