8Thomas Kinsella is one of the most indispensable poets writing in the English language, and this collection is the pinnacle and summary of an exceptional career. From the landscapes and early formalism of Another September (1958), the psychological investigations of Downstream (1962), the toughened metrics and paradoxical faith of Nightwalker and Other Poems (1968), to the balanced relationships of New Poems (1973), Kinsella has produced an epic body of work with unusual range and skill. The themes and forms of the early to middle period deepened into the creative myths that were collected in volumes such as One (1974), Songs of the Psyche (1985), Out of Ireland (1987), and Poems from Centre City (1990). The ensuing volumes continue the search for naked proof of human dignity, as Kinsella has always done, but now they confront mutability, death, and the increasing chaos of twenty-first-century experience.