London's poetry ranges from the up-beat rap of Benjamin Zephaniah to Wordsworth's dawn sigh over the beauty of Westminster Bridge, from half-charred lines of Anglo-Saxon to yesterday's lyrics retrieved from a pub floor. Like the city itself this collection is full of grief, irony and delight. It shares no unifying historical vision and offers no single perspective over this tidal valley of mud, gravel, power and gold. Instead the unblinking eyes of the poets, touched by God, madness and desire, create a potent and highly personal corrective to political history.
