Tender poems on the death of his wife, witty Philip Larkin apercus, meditations on the spiritual need of Australians for Europe, hard-eyed satire as a political fixer dismisses as out-of-date the instruments of torture in the Tower of London: John Upton's range is broad and his poetic skills accomplished. There's also wit, along with rollicking humour and love of the absurd, with jealous Othello transposed into Sydney's posh Eastern Suburbs, and a defrocked priest with a gambling habit sacked and clerking at the TAB.
