Michael Harlow's poetry embodies a dialogue with European literary traditions and his theme, here as in earlier books, is the search for language to express and convey the strangeness and mystery of the everyday. Though there is a dark strain in this collection, which deals with several deaths, there is also a good deal of humour.

Language's classically menaced capacity to convey the realness of reality is the central anxiety of this inventive and sophisticated collection of poetry. As the poems ruminate on the humor and magic of everyday life and the severe melancholy of death, their expert handling of poetic diction, imagery, and rhythm leads to an intimate dialog with the time-honored themes of the European literary tradition.