In this wonderful second collection, Moniza Alvi steps boldly into the territory she made her own in The Country at my Shoulder, a book which made her one of the chosen "New Generation" poets. These poems, many based on visits to her birthplace, Pakistan, are at once beautiful, thoughtful, and quite marvelous. Alvi"s work has grown in confidence and warmth since her last collection published in 1993. A greater depth of seriousness infuses her poems on Pakistan and India, but she has retained her delicacy of spirit and the gentle surrealism that identifies her work.