The taut, gnomic line that characterized much of [Creeley's] previous work is now gentled, smoothed [in Later]—but just as wondrous in its new form as the old. Creeley's verse has undergone a transmutation both subtle and awesome….

The material of these poems is love—as Creeley's material so often has been—a love that has survived and mellowed, not sentimentally, but in a richer, more possible way. (p. 57)

Creeley's verse was always loaded, crammed into a small space. These lines seem even shorter, and the grammar simpler, as if the poet had finally resolved some essential dilemmas, finally arrived at some conclusions. "Thought's random torture" is what he's always been about; now he has indeed learned to "simply live." That he chooses to open the book with an inscription from the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh that enjoins us to "hold in mind/all that has loved you...