The 'confessional poetry' which is now being produced in such quantity, especially in America, has been received, especially in Britain, with a good deal of affectionate mockery, if not with hostile jeering. There is likely to be a similar reception for the latest development in the genre, the Poet's Confession in book-length prose, of which Peter Davison's Half Remembered is a prime example. What do I care about the details of Mr Davison's schoolboy masturbation experiences, reviewers are going to say, or the interpretation of his nightmares? Why does he feel obliged to tell me all this, either in verse or in prose?

One answer at least is that Davison, like many of his contemporaries, held it all in so long—spent so many years not telling anyone anything. When he was at Harvard just after World War Two, the correct models for a poet were Eliot, Stevens...