Richard Lambert's collection announces its geography in the title. The places may not have a name, but they have a provenance easily imagined. In 'The Rebel Angel' God's messenger 'hangs from a lamp-post, dressed / in tar and feathers. He's fifty, fat, / and broken in half like this sonnet.' This is clever, and Lambert is a clever writer, but rarely in any perjorative sense.

... [His] wanderings are noiseless and dreamlike, the scenes alighted upon resembling moonlit fantasies at points on a river's delineation, such as a hotel whose guests are fugitive, whose lone swimming-pool occupant is driven by goodness knows what.

... Lambert is a master of design... He is also a lofty observer of place and what we have made of it, how we repose in it. His poems repay close attention and re-reading. Combined, they have integrity and embody a cooly-shaped vision.