A whole section of the art of critical self-defence is devoted to the docketting and pigeonholing of 'difficult' writers: it saves one from the ghastly business of actually reading and forming an objective opinion. A good play is to tie the errant author to a literary fashion which is now out of favour there are always plenty to choose from.

'Very popular in the late sixties' is a useful phrase: it's factual, and the concealed slight (built on implied, unproven, subsequent stagnation of the writer, and a questionable reliance on current opinion) is difficult to combat with equal brevity.

Tom Pickard is not a 'difficult' writer though he is complex, and deceptively true. But proper assessment of his work has been hindered for too long by consideration of peripherals (his class and educational background, obscenity, rebellion, dialect – and of course his popularity in the sixties and after), interesting enough in their own way, but taken in isolation misleading, inasmuch as they gloss over his very real talent.

I hope readers can approach Hero Dust with open minds, for such an exciting book of poems rarely appears. Subtitled New and Selected Poems it presents the core of Pickard's work from 1962