Afterlife by Sean O'Brien (Picador)
by Patrick O'Connor
THE organisers of a poetry festival in the fictious town of Divott near the Welsh border want to reintern the body of celebrated poet Jane Jarmain, a move that forces her one-time friend Martin Stone to look back on events in a sultry summer in the 70s.
Stone was obsessed by poet Thomas Exton and back in the 70s felt that his own troubled, drug-fuelled lifestyle shared parallels with the 17th century scribe.