Conjure is Michael Donaghy’s third collection, and his most accomplished to date, displaying the same trademark elegance, sleight of hand and philosophical wit that have established his reputation as a ‘poet’s poet’.

But while these poems time their feints and punches as well as ever, often the poet’s guard is deliberately kept down: Conjure’s elegies and disappearing acts, love songs and tortuous journeys represent the most challenging, vulnerable and moving work Donaghy has yet written.

‘Among the finest American poets of his generation’ Robert McPhillips

‘The artistry of Donaghy’s work seems to me exemplary’ Sean O’Brien

‘The fine-tuned precision of a twelve-speed bike’ Alfred Corn