Booth's eighth poetry collection, with its evocations of compassion, tenderness and invading darkness, implies that redemption will come only from having loved well and wisely. Publishers Weekly remarked, "Booth is a traveler keenly, almost mystically, aware that 'how you get there is where you'll arrive.' "

The poet Philip Booth (1925 - 2007) was first published in book form by Viking's legendary editorial advisor Malcolm Cowley in 1950. His numerous books of poetry included Letters from a Distant Land, The Islanders, Weather and Edges, Margins, Available Light, Before Sleep, Relations, Selves, Pairs, and Lifelines: Selected Poems 1950 - 1999. Booth was a fellow of the American Academy of Poets.