When Denise Levertov died on December 20, 1997, she left behind forty finished poems, which now form her last collection, This Great Unknowing. Few poets have possessed so great a gift or so great a body of work—when she died at 74, she had been a published poet for more than half a century. The poems themselves shine with the artistry of a writer at the height of her powers.

This volume of fiction and essays includes three short stories, articles on the craft of poetry focusing on the musical function of the line, and a discussion of the relation of poets to politics.

Poems address such topics as paintings, music, landscapes, and the terror in El Salvador.

"Levertov's master--more than mastery, because she is one of the originators--of contemporary poetic form, informed with a fierce, generous intelligence, can be frightening." --Ursula Le Guin, Washington Post

Conceived as a convenience to those readers concerned with doubt and faith, Denise Levertov's 34 selected poems originally were published in seven separate volumes. The poet presents a selection of thirty-four of her own poems culled from previously published volumes, tracing her movement from agnosticism to Christian faith and her oscillation from doubt to affirmation along the way.

Gathered here in one handy volume are 62 poems about nature and the ecology. But, as the author notes in her preface, these are not all praise-poems"celebration and fear of loss are necessarily conjoined". This compact gift-book will have special appeal to those who love Mother Earth.