James Deahl has been called "one of the ten or twenty finest poets writing in the English language." His poetry has been described as "precise articulations of landscape ..." producing "a highly charged evocation of place ... that it is as if the reader were the first person to stand there." This collection continues Deahl's exploration of the natural world around him in language that is precise and startling, tinged with nostalgia but bravely facing the realities, and always with an eye on the larger picture.

Born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, James Deahl moved to Canada in 1970. He is a founding member of the Canadian Poetry Association. A cycle of his poems was the focus of a one-hour television special, Under the Watchful Eye (1993). He has published (or translated) numerous books of poetry including Love Where Our Nights Are Long and If Ever Two Were One. He lives in Sarnia.