“I like you sir. You’re shit or bust, you are.”

- Keith Douglas’ batman, to Keith Douglas.

I was twenty three when I discovered the work of the Second World War poet Keith Douglas. I’d just completed an English degree and was worn out with novels,so for a year I read only comics and poetry. Good comics were easy to find, but good poetry wasa rarer substance. It seemed to me that you had to read twenty impenetrable poems for every one that spoke to you, but I was fortunate enough to have time on...