James Methven's brilliant twenty-first century variations on Catullus won the inaugural Poetry Wales Purple Moose Poetry Prize in 2009. 'After' Catullus they may be, but there is nothing passive in these concentrated, ingenious and ferociously funny versions. Marked by variegated obscenity and sudden flashes of disappointed love, Precious Asses is full of wit and cynicism. I read these poems with pleasure and admiration. (Patrick McGuinness)