The Divided Self is Graeme Hetherington’s ninth poetry collection since 1986, with the four volumes immediately preceding this one appearing between 2017 and 2020. This fact, together with the poet’s age (he was born in 1937), suggests that he feels a sense of urgency, of the importance of getting his work written and published while there is still time. Indeed, this very urgency and a concomitant quality of emotional intensity pervade the entire book: there is a concentration of the experiences and reflections of a lifetime. The life explored is a very particular life influenced by a very particular place,…