[In Unlawful Assembly the] conversational, ironical tone of poems that are more like footnotes to experience than anything more ambitious, is immensely pleasing…. Commonsense and humour run through this whole collection ('ordinariness has much to be said for it'). Control is good, the effects are achieved—though sometimes with a certain amount of discursiveness ('Processional') and sometimes with too much of the footnote's curtness ('Cultural Freedom'). Very enjoyable are 'After The Riots', 'Roman Reasons' (about Enobarbus) and 'What became of What-was-his-name?', the miniature equivalent of a Graham Greene novel set in a Police State. Best of all, perhaps, is 'Map', where the material is compressed into a stricter form. Enright is not what anyone would call a 'soaring' poet, and his technical skill as a writer of verse is not dazzling (nor perhaps would he want it to be); but those critics who give him the brush-off have been reading too much pretentious nonsense. (pp. 94-5)
Gavin Ewart, "Old Scores," in London Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 9, December, 1968, pp. 92-5.∗
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