Beginning with his first poem appearing in a literary journal at age 14, acclaimed Canadian-American poet Daryl Hine published eleven books of verse over a fifty-three year period - many now long out of print. This book presents Hine's own selection of his best collected and uncollected lyric poems, including that first poem, thematically divided into four sections - art, love, place, and time.

Internationally celebrated for his translations and his poetry, Hine's virtuoso attention to form and the resonance of his details make these poems some of the finest written in the English language.

This collection includes an introduction by the author.

For his control of learning and wit I can think of few poets alive who can approach him. There are very few poets as good as Daryl Hine and almost none like him."
-- John Hollander

"I cannot tell how it is that Daryl Hine knows so much, but it is his poetry which knows. . . his poetry does the telling. If that is what it means to be civilized, witty, playful and urbane. . . such provocations afford us access to experience in a heightened register, a major key."
-- Richard Howard

". . . there is a heroic sense in these poems of a need to parry [the world's onslaughts with steely verbal elegance. . . typical of his civilized erotic self-criticism, somewhat elevated in traditional form. . . I find him sometimes a slightly disconcerting blend of openness and fastidiousness. . . frequently, touching, exact, musical and evocative."
-- John Fuller, T.L.S.

"Hine is a superb poetic craftsman. . . a 'geographer of the word'. . . one is overwhelm-ingly aware of these poems as poems."
-- Barry Cameron, Canadian Literature

Born in 1936, and raised in New Westminster, British Columbia, Daryl Hine studied classics and philosophy at McGill University in Montreal, and earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of Chicago. He was the editor of Poetry magazine from 1968 to 1978, and taught at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. As a poet, Hine was known for his learned wit, formal mastery, and cosmopolitan sensibility. He published eighteen volumes of poetry, several works of prose and verse drama, and five books of translations from ancient Greek and Latin poets. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1986, among other awards. In 2010 he was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award in Poetry. Hine died in 2012 in Evanston, Illinois, at the age of 76.

Daryl Hine's profile page

"(Hine) strikes the right balance between sound and sense, as in the latter half of "Panta Rhei," he achieves a state that critics sometimes shy away from judging and perhaps no longer much believe in, aesthetic perfection."
— poetryfoundation.org

"The book is full of everything from travel poems to biographical sketches to meditations on mythology, animals, cities, and history, to writing-about-writing to domestic dramas, each beautifully crafted and flawlessly composed. Only a glutton could ask for more."
— The Malahat Review

"Hine's descriptive chops remain considerable, and when he strikes the right balance between sound and sense, and in the latter half of 'Panta Rhei,' he achiebes a state that critics sometimes shy away from judging and perhaps no longer much believe in, aesthetic perfection."
— Book Review Digest