'One of the very best of our poets' Anthony Powell Kingsley Amis wrote poems throughout his life, turning his acerbic, bracing perceptiveness on the same subjects that fill his novels: lust, lost love, drink, money, God (seen as indifferent or malign), and old age. Collected Poems , arranged chronologically, shows the full range of his sparkling verse, by turns scabrous and melancholy, satirical and playful. 'Scathingly funny . bawdy and tragic, unflinching and unapologetic, culpable and morally acute . Amis's poems rush headlong into the messiness of life' New Criterion 'A contender for the title of the most accomplished and least self-satisfied poet of his generation' Clive James.