Robin Robertsons fourth collection is if anything an even more intense moving bleakly lyrical & at times shocking book than Swithering winner of the Forward Prize. These poems are written with the authority of classical myth yet sound utterly contemporary: the poets gaze -- whether on the natural world or the details of his own life -- is unflinching & clear its utter seriousness leavened by a wry dry & disarming humour. Alongside fine translations from Neruda & Montale & dynamic (and at times horrific) retellings of stories from Ovid the poems in The Wrecking Light pitch the power & wonder of nature against the frailty & failure of the human. Ghosts sift through these poems -- certainties become volatile the simplest situations thicken with strangeness & threat -- all of them haunted by the pressure & presence of the primitive world against our own & the kind of dream-like intensity of description that has become Robertsons trademark. This is a book of considerable grandeur & sweep which confirms Robertson as one of the most arresting & powerful poets at work today. Robin Robertson continues to explore the bleak beautiful territory that he has made his own. His stripped-bare lyricism haunted by echoes of folksong is as unforgiving as the weather & poems such as At Roane Head show him writing at the height of his considerable powers The Times