Yellow Tulips: Poems 1968-2011, By James Fenton

If you have little love for recent poetry, wake up and smell James Fenton's Yellow Tulips.

This fine collection offers mystery and delight, virtuosity, accessibility - and sheer mischief.

From early landmarks such as "A German Requiem" to fresher fiestas of fireworks and fun ("A Manila Manifesto"; "Spanish Songs"), he can pimp even "light" verse into a vehicle for all the burdens and perplexities of tragic modern history and absurd daily life - the sort of life you might, as in a much-loved Fenton poem, take out and dump in "The Skip".