Poetry. Cultural Writing. Translation. Greek Literature. With illustrations by Fran Burden. Was the Cyclops a lonely, psychopathic monster out to waylay and eat those unfortunate enough to encounter him, or a lonely creature given to impossible loves, who did nothing to deserve his terrible reputation? Fred Beake's new book gives curious readers an opportunity to reassess their own psyches in the light of a gifted modern poet's version of the classical myth. The book also contains original poems, themselves verging on myth, and a fine essay on the significance of myth in and for our times. Fred Beake was born in 1948 and grew up in the rural West Riding of Yorkshire. The present volume is his fourth substantial collection since The Whiteness of her Becoming in 1992; ETRUSCAN READER IX, which Beake contributed to, is also available from SPD.