Vernon Scannell, in Times Literary Supplement, wrote of Martin Booth’s previous collection, Calling with Owls, that ‘the poems carry a strong sense of real experience observed with clarity and expressed with force and unwavering truthfulness.’ In this, his sixth collection, Booth revised all that he felt worth retaining from his earlier books and to these has added new poems which continue to affirm that he was, as Robin Skelton, in Malahat Review, stated, ‘the most interesting and challenging poet of his generation.’ Martin Booth (1944-2004) was poet, publisher (The Sceptre Press was well-known for its single poem volumes), novelist, and biographer.