Denis Devlin's Collected Poems brings together the poems and translations published during his lifetime. Arranged around his three major collections--two which he oversaw and a third he did not live to complete--the result is an extensive and accomplished body of poetry where imagery is shifting and evocative. As J. C. C. Mays writes in his Introduction, "sense is elided, meaning is syncopated, because it has to be." It is the achievement of "energy consistently applied to a purpose which takes manifold directions. When the effect succeeds, it is exhilarating in a way few poets can rival."
