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This book offers the general reader an introduction to some of the most exciting poetry of recent years. Lee Harwood, Chris Torrance and Barry MacSweeney all write against the grain, shaping the lyric into an instrument of criticism as well as ecstatic joy. Their writing expresses the power ofpoetry to expose the corruption of language to excite political passion, but also to touch the deepest bodily core of pain and joy. This is poetry written against the prevailing culture, uncompromising in its commitment to truth. These poets take lyrical emotion away from gutless pastoral nostalgiaand dull conservative language and bring it into the contemporary: poetry that, instead of lulling to sleep, explodes with the possibilities of life.