John Riley: Selected Poems

By his death, at the age of 41, John Riley 's poetry had achieved an importance beyond the trends of the day. Significant though his poems were in the 1960s and after, their value goes beyond their immediate poetic and social context. Riley's is a poetry of integrity and vision, in which precise observation and wit co-exist with an extraordinary beauty of image and rhythm. What he achieves is art of a high order.