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The best poetry books of 2015

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From Clive James’s Sentenced to Life to Andrew McMillan’s Physical and Claudia Rankine’s Citizen – this year’s poetry roundup

Poetry cannot be hurried; it is no respecter of deadlines. Yet the quantity of poems published each year is daunting and asks for speed. Sometimes, I’ll pick up a volume by someone I’ve never heard of, open it at random and be rooted to the spot. At other times, a collection by a known poet will prove sealed as a dud mussel, and get cast aside. Inevitably, with only a dozen columns a year, there will be noteworthy collections that slip through the net. But poetry is not a competition; nothing is more personal, unpredictable and mysterious. For this reason, I am uneasy about the poetry prizes that make or consolidate names. Yet when one finds a poem that works, there is, however illusory the feeling might be, a certainty that has an acquisitive edge to it – like stumbling upon a pearl.

Related: Clive James: ‘I’ve got a lot done since my death’

Murray sends himself up as an “old book troglodyte”, but there is not a trace of the has-been about his matchless voice

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