Gavin Bantock’s challenging new poem is written in the form of an Euclidean theorem. It sets forth a proposition, often in a sharply satirical and polemic vein, for world peace.

Mr Bantock is ‘not afraid to think big, to stick out his neck, and to write of man’s fragile vanity’, as Kevin Crossley-Holland wrote of Juggernaut. In Eirenikon his account of mankind’s pollution both of the world and himself, is violent and disturbing; but it is finally a humanistic poem written for love of man – with vigour, humour, irony and a striking originality of style and method.