LEOPARDS IN THE TEMPLE

Many of the poems in this second collection deal with Greek history and/or myths, with medieval tales, or with Old Testament stories such as Exodus. A sense of time past suffuses other poems on different themes and the harsh, desert heritage of the Hebrews affects in particular poems to his parents or poems of love and friendship. Some of them are trapped in an overly neat rhyme scheme and a drab shorthand of expression which inverts phrases and meanings into awkward forms. There is quite a breadth of material, but its emotional and intellectual potential is often lost in intricate, opaque phrasing.