Poems of love and hate; poems of religion and death, loss and grief; poems to touch your soul... John Eliot's poems cover an expanse, from thoughts inspired by an old family photograph taken before the First World War claimed two brothers on the Somme, to remembering the birth of his son when he stood as proud father. Another poem in the collection was begun in 1970 and finished in 2014. The feeling and understanding that John brought to his role as a teacher of religion is evident when we read of St Cecelia or of the death of Jesus in The King of Thorns. The rural France where John lives is...