Pauline Stainer is a poet working at the margins of the sacred, conveying sensations with an economy of means that is breathtaking. Her poems are not merely artifacts, they have an organic life of their own. This collection brings together poetry of rare luminosity from Stainer"s five previous books, together with a new collection, A Litany of High Waters, all inhabiting an imaginative borderland inspired by her "visceral Muse." Stainer"s 1996 fourth collection, The Wound-dresser"s Dream, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award.