The time is at an end.

The river swirled
Into an ox-bow bend, but now

It shudders and re-unites:

Adversary! Friend!


from `Ox-B'
         

This selection from the first thirty years of Donald Davie's poetry reveals an impassioned spirit advancing from Augustan reserve towards the treacherous, rewarding risks of modernism. As a critic, Helen Vendler writes,
`he has drawn a map of modernism, starting with Hardy and Pound, that remains one of the definitive outlines of twentieth-century experiment in form and language. The mapmaker, in this
case,' she adds, `is a notable locus on the map.'

His poetry is an abiding source and a resource for readers and other writers. `These
poems,' said Martin Dodsworth (Guardian), `thrive on the restless energy that drives their author on from form to form and place to place. Few poets are more likely than Davie to persuade new readers that poetry can still be a matter of concern and
pleasure.'