The best recent poetry – review roundup

Yiewsley by Daljit Nagra; Mer de Glace by Małgorzata Lebda; The Intentions of Thunder by Patricia Smith; Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak by Rishi Dastidar; Dark Night by St John of the Cross, translated by Martha SpracklandYiewsley by Daljit Nagra (Faber, £14.99)Given the relish with which Nagra pushes and pulls at English, it’s worth noting that Yiewsley is a real west London suburb. This location allows him to continue his career-long exploration of childhood working-class Sikh experience and, through it, wider questions of identity. But as Nagra turns 60, location is becoming increasingly a matter of time as well as space. The classic struggle of each first generation to arrive in Britain, and the pressure on its kids to make good, now sits within a 1960s and 70s time capsule. Enoch Powell and the National Front cast violent shadows, but parkas, school blancmange and cricket strike a sweeter, almost elegiac note.Mer de Glace by Małgorzata Lebda, translated by Mira Rosenthal (Fitzc