Body language and the body of the English language are the entwined themes of this passionate new collection of poems. The centerpiece is "Skyhorse," an ambitious poem that traces the turbulence of three millennia of English history by focusing on the enduring presence of the legendary White Horse of the Berkshire Downs. The latter half of the collection features a candid, passionate sequence of elegies and love poems that gradually shifts focus from the first words in the garden of Eden to the final words of last night's lovers.

Jon Stallworthy is a senior research fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford University, and fellow of the British Academy. He is the author of the prize-winning biographies Louis MacNeice and Wilfred Owen, as well as Rounding the Horn: Collected Poems.