Collected Poems

Brilliant, passionate, outrageous, abrasive, but also, as in the family sonnets, immeasurably tender * Harold Pinter *
Harrison is a masterly technician, and the most fiery and indelible English poet of the age. This book is a vineyard on a volcano * Paul Farley *
Tony Harrison changed the entire landscape of British poetry * Don Paterson *
Slangy, rooted, erudite, rhythmic, Harrison is a titan among poets; a unique Yorkshire brew of Auden, Byron, Brecht and Kipling, with a slug of Roman satire * The Independent *
A pessimist with a relish for life . . .whose work insists that it is speech rather than page-bound silence -- Sean O'Brien * Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry *
Tony Harrison writes in a style I have all my life been waiting for; combining the uninhibitedly vernacular with a line as taut and astringent as Racine's -- Stephen Spender * Observer *
The poem "v." is the most outstanding social poem of the last twenty-five years. Seldom has a British poem of such personal intensity had such universal range -- Martin Booth
The war poems are important and moving, obviously, but his personal writing made me wipe away surreptitious tears -- Alison Flood
Tony Harrison is a superbly accessible and talented poet * Time Out *
Whatever note Harrison strikes, be it melancholy regret or boisterous high spirits, the youthful energy to be found in his verse marks him out as a towering figure in poetry * Glasgow Herald *
Scatological satire suits him as much as political wit or meditation. World-wide in its topography, powerful in its effects . . . stunning! -- Douglas Dunn
One of the few truly great poets writing in English. His range is exhilarating, his clarity and technical mastery a sharp pleasure -- Melvyn Bragg
Some of the most important poems of the present day * Poetry Review *
More than any other English poet I have read in recent years, Harrison makes good Camus' claim that the function of art is 'to open the prisons and give a voice to the sorrows and joys of all -- John Lucas * New Statesman *