The urge to tell tales, to give news to the community, to voice philosophical musings, to say poems, is as old as humankind. Geraldine Clinton Little is intrigued with those artists whose creativity was kept hidden from the world during their lifetimes and so found no success or publication. Yet they wrote until the ends of their lives. Out of Darkness addresses questions surrounding the lives and work of five major poets: Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Traherne, John Donne and Edward Taylor. Little writes on their lives and their spirits, as well as their posthumous (and profound) fame. How many drawers of the world are lined with unseen poems? Little seeks not to examine figures or statistics, but to understand the individual perception of recognition. The last portion of her book contains statements made by contemporary poets, including Robert Penn Warren, Richard Eberhart and Hayden Carruth, about creative motivation in themselves, and observations about others.