Author Description

Beginning with his first poem appearing in a literary journal at age 14, acclaimed Canadian-American poet Daryl Hine published eleven books of verse over a fifty-three year period - many now long out of print. This book presents Hine's own selection of his best collected and uncollected lyric poems, including that first poem, thematically divided into four sections - art, love, place, and time. Internationally celebrated for his translations and his poetry, Hine's virtuoso attention to form and the resonance of his details make these poems some of the finest written in the English language. This collection includes an introduction by the author. For his control of learning and wit I can think of few poets alive who can approach him. There are very few poets as good as Daryl Hine and almost none like him." -- John Hollander "I cannot tell how it is that Daryl Hine knows so much, but it is his poetry which knows... his poetry does the telling. If that is what it means to be civilized, witty, playful and urbane... such provocations afford us access to experience in a heightened register, a major key." -- Richard Howard "... there is a heroic sense in these poems of a need to parry [the world's onslaughts with steely verbal elegance... typical of his civilized erotic self-criticism, somewhat elevated in traditional form... I find him sometimes a slightly disconcerting blend of openness and fastidiousness... frequently, touching, exact, musical and evocative." -- John Fuller, T.L.S. "Hine is a superb poetic craftsman... a 'geographer of the word'... one is overwhelm-ingly aware of these poems as poems." -- Barry Cameron, Canadian Literature