This collection studies writers and mystics, past and present, and considers from a Christian poet's perspective how religious or mystical experience informs the imagination. The text provides readings of Elizabeth Jennings's chosen authors and offers clues to her own poetry. Though her first concern is poetry, she draws on prose writers to effect her explorations. Writers considered include: St Augustine; St Teresa of Avila; George Herbert; T.S. Eliot; Charles Peguy; Simone Weil; Gerald Manley Hopkins; David Gascoyne; Julian of Norwich; St John of the Cross; Henry Vaughan; Thomas Traherne; Rainer Maria Rilke; Edwin Muir; Hart Crane; and Wallace Stevens.