In this collection, Anna Jackson's poems deal thoughtfully and elegantly with motherhood, family, and the environment. Her ideas often assume unexpected forms, appearing as hens, vending machines, or grass within her poetry. Also addressed in these poems is the fate of today's animals in their restricted habitats, which is dealt with in poems such as "Dodo," "Butterflies," and "The Pastoral Elephant."

Anna Jackson is the 2001 writer in residence at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. She received her Ph. D. from Oxford University, is the author of The Long Road to Teatime, and appears in the short ficion anthology The Picnic Virgin. She lives in Hamilton, New Zealand.