Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Clayton Eshleman broke from the so-called constraining environment of the American Midwest and began his journeys to South America and Japan, travels and experiences that serve as unifying motifs for much of his work. Certainly this interest in other myths and cultures reinforces his own attempt at establishing an understanding of himself in a spiritual context. Attempting self-definition in a largely troubled, indifferent world, Eshleman is, in some ways, both romantic and realist. His poetry is a brutal, moving account of a modern man opening himself emotionally to public view. He exposes himself simultaneously as naif and worldly wise; he expects little from what he discovers in life, yet he demands much from himself physically, intellectually, and psychically. His poetry is a reflection of man's rootless condition.

The poems concern themselves with a human being's agitated state, and Eshleman's journey, both internal and external...