ÿLaura Riding was a major poet whose poems, though widely admired and influential,

have been little understood. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s she was ?a devout

advocate of poetry? believing that ?to go to poetry is the most ambitious act of the

mind?. Her subsequent renunciation of poetry in the 1940s gave rise to bemusement.

Jack Blackmore tackles the causes of the neglect of Riding?s poetry and

establishes new and productive approaches to the poems. His close readings of fifteen

poems demonstrate the progress of Collected Poems and the remarkable range and

scope of her poetry. He establishes both the strength and unity of the poems and the

continuity between them and her ?post-poetic? work, in particular her spiritual

testament The Telling.

Mark Jacobs?s vivid memoir of a visit to the author in later life at her Florida

home complements the work on the poems.

?'These essays are interesting and you have done well? You seem to me fair

and just in what you say about her work.' - Robert Nye

'This is ambitious work, full of insights.' - Professor Michael Schmidt