I played over dead bombs
In suburban villas, a wrecked
Street of them where, run wild,
Fat rhododendrons cracked
The floors of derelict rooms:
It seemed to a small child
An Eden of neglect
 

from 'Post-War Childhoods'

'If there were no affliction in the world, we might think we were in paradise,' wrote Simone Weil. This suggests the themes of Clive Wilmer's third collection of poems, Of Earthly Paradise. Christian ideas of paradise refer to the things of this world, to nature and the human body, with art empowered to construct visions of that paradise. A related theme is work-Adam's curse when he fell, but a blessing when work becomes synonymous with art.

Wilmer, an outstanding formal poet, uses rhymed and metrical forms and also makes inventive use of free verse. Martin Dodsworth, reviewing an earlier collection Devotions in the Guardian, said: 'It is the work of an original and still developing mind, capable of the radical re-interpretations of tradition that poetry is about.'