In the past [Michael Longley] proved himself defter than most in the handling of rhymes and metre. There was a consistently smooth elegance about his work, his intricate verse forms—especially in No Continuing City—reflecting an ambitiously precise kind of craftsmanship.

Man Lying on a Wall is no less scrupulous a book. It has already been criticised, insanely, on the grounds that it is too neat, too careful. Elegance is no longer the thing-itself for Longley, if, indeed, it ever was. His care is a simple consequence of his honesty. It just so happens his poems unfold in slow, clear, careful lines. They are lines full of experience embodied in flowers and creatures; or of experience told in stories, either whimsical, made-up fictions pressed gently from the imagination, or more direct narratives. His truths and fidelities are among the qualities of contemporary poetry which must infuriate impostors...