Arthur Bull has selected the best of his published poetry and has added new works to show his engagement with the world, great minds, and important causes over the past thirty years. He writes, "For some poets, making a selection like this is apparently a very difficult task, but that has not been the case for me: I simply chose the ones I like. This is a bit like having a favourite mutt that could never get a ribbon in a dog show, and probably means that some good poems have been left out because I never really warmed to them. I suppose it also means that the book itself is a kind of expressive poetic work, taken as a whole. Or that is my defence, anyway."