In this volume of poems written over thirty-five years, William Irwin Thompson presents a remarkable range of work-from the personal and lyrical, through the narrative and mythological, to the scientific and cosmological-that traces many of the major themes that have affected contemporary culture for the past half century. His book opens with a mythological sequence on Quetzalcoatl, "Blue Jade from the Morning Star," which john Bierhorst has called "a fresh reading." In the words of Kathleen Raine: "There is a great difference between merely academic translation and the imaginative participation which Dr. Thompson has brought to these 'versions' and verse commentaries on the great vision of Quetzalcoatl." Books Two and Three contain mostly lyrical work, while Book Four concludes with a vision of the evolution of life that extends the lyrical into the cosmological in a sequence built on and addressed to the work of his four scientific friends: Ralph Abraham, James Lovelock, Lynn Margulis, and Francisco Varela.
