This volume includes all the published poems of Alan Stephens, except for some of his earliest work. It begins with the late verses and proceeds back in time to the beginnings of The Sum (1958). It ends with the long narrative White River Poems (1976).
Hendry’s Beach, the setting for this sonnet sequence, lies at the mouth of a creek in Santa Barbara, a branch of which flows behind the house where the poet lived for many years.
This selection is drawn from the forty-year span of Alan Stephens’s work. All eleven of his books are represented here. There are some previously unpublished verses, as well.
