There is no faith or hope that does not know
The odour of carnality, nor love

The neighbourhood of animals...

from 'Stigmata'

Clive Wilmer's latest collection explores the interdependence of earthly things and heavenly mystery. In the tradition of mystical literature, the sacred is seen in terms of the erotic and the erotic furnishes glimpses of the transcendent. Central to the book is the intuition that pain and fear are fundamental to the valuation of life. In Wilmer's poems, as Vernon Scannell wrote, 'The sense of passionate involvement, at times of anguish, is sharpened and deepended by the precision and elegance of the forms that convey it.' In this collection, published in his 62nd year, his forms are more forcefully compressed than ever.