Poems (1987)

“James Lasdun’s A Jump Start is a gratifyingly ambitious collection, shimmering with a quick intelligence…with the extra bonus of a restlessly inventive mind.” — Terry Eagleton, The Literary Review

“I’m filled with admiration, delight, and gratitude at discovering James Lasdun’s poems in A Jump Start. He has wit, speed, intelligence, a keen eye, precision, and imagination of a high order.” — Anthony Hecht

“James Lasdun’s A Jump Start is cosmopolitan, urbane, powerful and metrically elegant. His themes are varied – mortality, sexuality, satire – but all the verse is vigorous and well made, the imagery vivid, surprising and memorable. A muted, almost menacing violence often underlies the sensual…” — Peter Reading, Evening Standard

“A very gifted first book.” — Washington Post

“James Lasdun’s extremely accomplished debut volume of poetry astonishes with its range of tone… Though A Jump Start is Lasdun’s first book, he is a poet already mature in his art.” — Hudson Review

“Glittering brilliance…rich visual imagery…cornucopian vision.” — Times Literary Supplement

“As brilliantly chiselled and metaphorically suggestive as anything in Brodsky or Hecht… If you’ve been waiting for that indisputably important new book of poetry, wait no longer.” — Peter Forbes, The Listener