The poems are printed in the order of their original publication, starting with The Tempers (1913) and ending with Poems 1936-1939. The appendices include notes on the text, annotations and the original contents pages of the earlier Collected editions, as well as a full index of titles and first lines.

This is the new paperback edition of the first of the monumental, definitive two-volume edition of Williams's Collected Poems, including all his verse apart from his major long poem Paterson, also available (in hardback) from Carcanet. Thom Gunn described this volume as 'an ideal edition'.