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The book is great. You are correct. I just read it properly for the second time. When I first read it, last Thursday, I was quite stunned and put it away from me, describing it as journalism. But it really is magnificent poetry in the main. A very fine achievement. And before Hughes I re-read MacSweeney. `Pearl' has come up in my estimation and the first part of BoD is inferior until MacSweeney grips you and carries you away. Different from Hughes but a voice in his own right. And before MacSweeney I can say that John Kinsells is a poet. I preferred `Syzygy'. But I am dubious about what he has to say. You have to say something even if you hanker to be a postmodern and reject the Enlightenment. And before that Maggie O'Sullivan's anthology `Out of everywhere'. I think I did find three or four poets out of the wreckage but it was a hard task. And thank you very much for the kind message that Eric MOttram's `Book of Herne' is available from North and South in Twickenham at L3.60. I must order it. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%