Peter Robinson's earliest published poetry was fortunate to receive numerous notices, including one in which the poet and novelist James Lasdun observed that ‘he "is" a poet, and one with a sensibility which, if attuned only to a somewhat limited range of experience, is unusually refined’ in "Siting Fires" 1 (1983). The best of these early reviews was Eric Griffiths’ in "PN Review" 35 (1983), which described Robinson as ‘in my judgement, the finest poet of his generation’. The publication of "This Other Life" (1988) brought his work to the attention of the national press for the first time with Martin Dodsworth in the "Guardian" (Friday 13 May 1988) describing the book as ‘grave and deliberated…beautiful and mysterious too’, Rachel Billington's singling it out in the "Financial Times" (20 Feb 1988), and its being named a ‘Book of the Year’ in the "Sunday Telegraph" (4 Dec 1988). Stephen Romer described it as ‘love poetry of an exemplary kind’ in the "Times Literary Supplement" (19 Aug 1988) and John Kerrigan found in it ‘a miracle of balance’ in the "London Review of Books" (13 Oct 1988).