Here, for the first time, David St John has selected from essays and reviews written over the course of his career -- about many of the major figures of our time: W S Merwin, Philip Levine, Mark Strand, Charles Wright, Donald Hall, Marvin Bell, Donald Justice, Jorie Graham, and dozens of others -- and brought them together with six uncompromising and refreshingly candid interviews about the craft of poetry and the state of poetry today.