SOURCE: “Seeing and Believing,” in Encounter, Vol. LXVII, No. 4, November, 1986, pp. 54–63.

In the following review, Mole offers a positive assessment of People Live Here.

It is getting harder and harder to write a poem. That is, I can start one well enough—but how to finish.” Only a confident poet risks making a statement like that in the secret knowledge that he will get away with it and deserves to; knowledge also that as a direct witness to his commitment it is part of the greater risk of presuming to write poetry at all. In this case the poet is Louis Simpson, examining his craft in a marvellously candid working autobiography—Air with Armed Men, published in 1972 and long overdue for reissue. What he goes on to say is worth quoting at some length:

“I used to be able to begin and finish a poem. I found that...