'Judith Wright wrote Fleur Adcock in the Times Literary Supplement 'is a central figure in Australian literature', yet Collected Poems is only the third volume of her work to appear in the country, and with a A Human Pattern, all that is now in print. Her first publication, The Moving Image (1946), has been followed in her own country by over twenty volumes of verse and prose. Judith Wright has concentrated her attention exclusively for the last decade on the problems of conservation and human, especially Aboriginal, rights. These preoccupations are not new: they have been at the heart of her poetry from the beginning through to Phantom Dwelling (1985). She has also explored other themes: the relations of man and woman, of people and their landscape, of a given language in an alien place - themes that are political, but have a metaphysical dimension, a timeless pertinence.`

includes extracts from: The Moving Image (1946), Woman to Man (1949), The Gateway (1953), The Two Fires (1955), Birds (1962), Fives Senses (The Forest) (1963), The Other Half (1966), Shadow (1970), Alive (1973), Fourth Quarter (1976), Phantom Dwelling (1985)