Peter Reading is one of Britain's most prolific, versatile, startlingly contemporary, and strikingly original poets. Employing increasingly ingenious metrical skills, Reading maps out an inconsolably sad and, at times, hilariously funny picture of England -- and the world -- in decline. Tackling issues such as violence, illness, madness, homelessness, and environmental catastrophe, his eschatological vision chastises a world gone morally, ecologically, and politically insane. Both bleak and deeply humane, his harrowing art aspires to, nothing less than, a distilled elegiac epic of our time. The destruction also strikes at Reading's art itself -- the last six books are one long valedictory, culminating in his own death statement, Ob.

Reading Peter Reading illuminates the poet's thematic and formal concerns, paradoxes, and development, as well as underlining his major status in contemporary literature. Its updated, detailed, textual analysis will help the readers' understanding of the poetry and provide a thorough and substantial basis for any future critical discussion of Reading's work.