Peter Redgrove

I spent part of the Easter weekend reading Dr Neil Roberts' fine biography of Peter Redgrove, A Lucid Dreamer. I'm sometimes a bit wary of biographies of poets, especially when they start dealing too heavily in material best left on the psychiatrist's couch. Here, though, it works well, perhaps because Redgrove believed so passionately in creativity's power to heal psychic hurt, and above all Roberts does justice to a writer who's too often been left in the shadow of Ted Hughes and others.

I bought the e-book version (much cheaper than the hardback), and soon found myself going back for the e-version of the Collected Poems, too. As anyone who ever tried to keep up with Redgrove's prolific output could tell you, a real Collected Poems would occupy a small room, so it's actually a selection, by Roberts, from across Redgrove's career. But whatever - it's as highly recommended as the biography.