Life and Times

Written by Vladimir Lucien for Poetry Online on Friday, September 22nd, 2017

'In Robert’s Collected Poems 1975-2015, we meet a career spanning four decades of serious dedication to poetry, and a continuous renewal of that “boyish” relish — though more measured, discriminating and subtle— of experimentation, innovation and virtuosity. Along with its epic journey of faith — a journey not devoid of experimentation — there is in Robert’s work a strong sense of responsibility to his Times, not so much as “social activism”, nor, as Walcott put it in his poem “Elsewhere”, to “make a career of conscience”, but as a chronicler of life in its complexity'