These poems, in traditional and modern forms using mostly country metaphors, celebrate human and animal residents of the western prairie, preserving the strong voices and matter-of-fact, often ironic, view of existence there; at the same time they deal with universal themes such as nostalgia, isolation, death, and mature love. Life's essential ambivalence is a constant and is presented with realism and occasional wry humor. The author includes an Afterward which examines the idea of poems in general and gives hints for reading his own.