One of the original 'Storm Warning' poets, Bill Howell is now at the height of an award-winning literary career spanning four decades. These poems are rich in both wry observation and narrative playfulness. They succeed in erasing the artificial lines we draw not only between our past selves and the masks we wear in the present, but also between the constructs of our urban sanctuaries and the perceived threats of the natural world. Free of artifice and pretension, these poems strip the world bare and marvel at its difficult, enduring beauty. As the Scottish poet James W Wood has said, "Howell's strengths seem to lie in his understated tone, his modest, self-deprecating humour and his keen eye for nature".