Many tensions are at work in the playfully unconstrained poems of Stanley Moss: ordinary and mythical lives, the political and the personal, high art and low comedy intermingle, achieving an effect that is often surreal and always striking. Here, God and Death are not matters for detached speculation but constant and vivid presences, whether centre-stage or waiting in the wings. An engagement with history is brought to bear on legend and on current affairs: a poem addressing 9/11 summons up the figure of Walt Whitman, whose exuberance and resolute faith in humanity Moss echoes throughout the book. Serious and optimistic, light and dark, Songs of Imperfection is an uplifting and celebratory book.