[Adam Elgar]

Yes, that sexiness thing - a bit of a mystery. The poem RP refers to is "Imperial" about deflowering a virgin. As a would-be fair-minded male, I find it hard to swallow the idea that a poem beginning thus -

Is it normal to get this wet? Baby, I'm frightened -
I covered her mouth with my own -

is sexy. Ditto the close, where the "flag of surrender" (a white sheet) is replaced by "the flag of Japan" (a bloodstain on the white sheet).

But then young women find DH Lawrence sexy. Not my middle-aged job to know why, I suspect.

Both Paterson and Donaghy are tricksy poets - very clever and inventive. The oddest thing for me, in relation to D's recent death, is the outpouring of grief for D not just as an artist but as a much-loved man. I find the personality expressed in his poetry thoroughly rebarbative. Sean O'Brien, a big big fan, calls him a poet of "good faith" - to me he's precisely the opposite. Compare our own outpouring for Margaret Griffiths - don't we think she is the real thing? I find her work much much better, and much more expressive of a delightful nature, than anything written by either of these blokes. Or O'Brien - a bit of a charlatan, I think. Certainly a glib over-producer.

That kind of poet really winds me up.

Ruth Padel, on the other hand - she's great, though her Darwin book was published too soon, I think. Maybe I just prefer poetry by women!