Clive James` power as a poet has increased year by year, & there has been no stronger evidence for this than Nefertiti in the Flak Tower. Here, his polymathic learning & technical virtuosity are worn more lightly than ever; the effect is merely to produce a deep sense of trust into which the reader gratefully sinks, knowing they are in the presence of a master. The most obvious token of that mastery is the book`s breathtaking range of theme: there are moving elegies, a meditation on the later Yeats, a Hollywood Iliad, odes to rare orchids, wartime typewriters & sharks -- as well as a poem on the fate of Queen Nefertiti in Nazi Germany. But despite the dizzying variety, James` poetic intention becomes increasingly clear: what marks this new collection out is his intensified concentration on the individual poem as self-contained universe. Poetry is a practice he compares (in ` Numismatics`) to striking new coin; & Nefertiti in the Flak Tower is a treasure-chest of one-off marvels, with each poem a twin-sided, perfect human balance of the unashamedly joyous & the deadly serious, `whose play of light pays tribute to the dark`. Praise for Angels Over Elsinore: ` The new poems again apply faultless technique to subject matter that ranges in weight from helium to promethium.. . These poems are dazzling` Prospect ` There is a casually rich mix of cultural allusions, but the most important quality is complete clarity` Independent