The state of modern poetry can be a cause of acrimonious arguments, with critics reprehending poets’ loss of interest in craft, opacity of meaning, and the burgeoning of often McGonagallesque political verse. Liam Guilar demonstrates that at least some modern poets reverence their craft, and know how to convey clear sense in words both evocative and memorable. His latest work is a cele­bration of long-neglected narrative traditions—an epic for an era which ironises everything, a tribute to this once and future island and its stoically enduring people. The author was born in Coventry (like Philip Larkin), and his work is…