C.K. Stead's "Collected Poems" is a milestone in English-language poetry: half a century's work from fourteen collections, along with early uncollected poems. A New Zealander, Stead's family connections in that country start in the early 1830s, and his poems reflect this background. He has also travelled widely, and the poems have travelled with him. He is a writer - novelist, literary historian and critic, as well as poet - who occupies literature like a landscape, his poetry deep-rooted in classical and European literary traditions, at ease in an international literary community. "Collected Poems" reveals a craft deepening decade by decade, a growing delight in its supple possibilities. With C.K. Stead's preface and a section of his notes illuminating the background to many of the poems, this "Collected Poems" is an essential compendium of the poetry of a major writer.