Sailing the Forest

Book excerpt: Sailing the Forest, Robin Robertson's Selected Poems, is the definitive guide to one of the most important poetic voices to have emerged from the UK in the last twenty-five years. Robertson's lyrical, brooding, dark and often ravishingly beautiful verse has seen him win almost every major poetry award; readers on both sides of the Atlantic have delighted in his preternaturally accurate ear and eye, and his utterly distinctive way with everything from the love poem to the macabre narrative. This book is both an ideal introduction to a necessary poet, and a fine summary of the great range and depth of Robertson's work to date.