1 JANUARY 1983, Page 24

Kathleen Raine

No doubt others will name some of the many excellent works of history and biography which I seldom have time to read but in which England still continues to ex- cel. The best book of poems of the last year is, I think, The Apple Broadcast by Peter Redgrove. David Gascoyne's Journals 1936-7 was published in 1980 (Enitharmon Press) but is still unnoticed in England while already acclaimed in France, where (as elsewhere in Europe) this poet is valued

at his true worth. Dr. H. S. Nasr's Gifford Lectures for 1981, Knowledge and the Sacred is a defence of the sophia perennis at a very high level, An alternative choice of a book which gave me pleasure recently is Ruth Tomalin's Life of W. H. Hudson (Faber).