Embracing the Razor, arranged in four sections, moves from grief to satire, with social analysis and travel along the way. The poems about the death of the poet’s wife in the opening section are among the most powerful in the book. ‘Now she removes the ventilator / mask and tapes a tube into your nose, / a barest pinch of oxygen. Pneumonia / is at its work ... / I ask the nurse, / “How long?” “Not long.” / One hour, five minutes’ (‘Morphine Around Midnight’).

Although the first section may be the most moving, the second is the most acute. Upton has a mordant eye for society’s contradictions. It is probably his dramatic experience that enables him to shape the episodes found in ‘The Marriage Counsellor’s Diary’, ‘Jury Duty’ and other poems into cameos that tell us more about ourselves than we might want to know.

‘Upton has a mordant eye for society’s contradictions’

The travel poems in the book’s third section rise well above the limited expectations we sometimes impose on this genre. ‘The World’s First Atheist State’ is an insightful account of post-communist Albania (and its complex history).

The lighter poems in the final section illustrate Upton’s facility with metre and rhyme, as well as his ability with satire. ‘A Larkin Love Story’ and ‘4711’ are just two of several accomplished pieces here about the vagaries of love. Others, such as ‘Unawares’ and ‘Michael the Vicar’ are unexpectedly poignant. In the face of such skill, it is hard to credit that Embracing the Razor is actually Upton’s début collection.