In ‘The Job of Paradise’ rhyming couplets carry the reader along through rituals and images associated with the end of life – ‘mumbled prayers’, ‘the long black hearse’, ‘a clean neat grave’ – declaiming what work of structure and solace they might afford us. The pacing metre offering a firm support, maybe so we don’t flounder in confronting the tragic business of how to even begin coping with the avoidable loss of so many loved ones. This poem concludes the section of Robinson’s latest volume that laments, rages at the crime of Grenfell and lovingly bespeaks the gentle workaday lives of people taken before their time.

With ‘A Portable Paradise’ Robinson’s multi-faceted arcadic metaphor, this time gifted him by his grandmother, is a trove of comfort and reassurance. A personal amulet that helps summon strength in the face of life’s pressures. We don’t learn specifically what conjures paradise so readers can imagine an object of their own that proffers encouragement, that brings sweetness and light in our darkest hours. Here and throughout the collection life’s challenges are met, meditated on, and mediated by deceptively simple language (we know how complex ‘simple’ is). Roger Robinson is a priceless poetic voice for our troubled times.

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