A Dancer to God

A Dancer to God brings together three short pieces written in homage to T. S. Eliot. They were prompted, in turn, by the unveiling of a plaque, by a reading of

The Waste Land in a London theatre, and by a centenary dinner. But each piece far transcends its occasion, and may be read as part of a sustained meditation on the very nature of Eliot's greatness as a poet.

Readers of Ted Hughes's

Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being, will find in this smaller book a comparable incisiveness and understanding of the spiritual demands imposed by supreme creative genius.