Features five key figures of Australian poetry - Kenneth Slessor, Roland Robinson, David Campbell, James McAuley and Francis Webb. Les Murray's introductory essays to the poets evoke the writers' circumstances, the trajectories of their very different work and suggests why their accomplishment have been generally eclipsed.

Not only the migrating birds speak in "Translations from the Natural World". The imprisoned species of pigs use their slum language; ravens, cuttlefish, sunflowers and a shell-back tick are among those non-verbal members of our natural world which find distinctive voices in this new collection of poems by Les Murray. Few poets could achieve such variety of approach to express character and feelings and to give us their vision of the universe. Les Murray also includes the human animal in the poems which begin and conclude the collection.