This is David Harsent's fifth volume of poems, and the first new collection since Mr Punch in 1984, and the success of his libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera, Gawain. News from the Front is a sequence that explores a drama of separation, using the voices of several characters: a man is separated by war from his common-law wife, and while he is away she gives birth to his child, a boy. The man writes letters home and also keeps a journal, containing in part a bestiary, which he hopes one day to show his son. The woman lives on the edge of Dartmoor, and at times her fancies and inner life are so strong as to bring the man almost within reach. The boy falls in with this, and sees his absent father as a hero.