Injury Time

James's confrontation with his approaching death is nothing short of inspirationalJoan Bakewell, Independent

Injury Time heads the latest/last collection of his poems, which are rightly heralded as 'a major literary event'. Though the title’s sporting metaphor is characteristic, it has very little to do with 'sport'. The poems are as widely ranging and inventive as ever, both in their form and their content. They range daringly from a splendidly substantial celebration of the deaf Beethoven to various self-revealing meditations on his own carcinoma. The latter can be admired at full strength in 'Night-Walkers Song', but his playful wit and imagination are as ever wonderfully variedKatherine Duncan-Jones, Times Literary Supplement

A fresh volume of poetry describing the joys of the bonus years the great polymath has been given by medicine, determination and loveEvening Standard

James has approached the time of his vanishing with grace and good humour, not sentimentality or anger. These poems are death-haunted but radiant with the felt experience of what it means to be aliveFinancial Times