C. K. Stead's Collected Poems is a milestone in English-language poetry: half a century's work from fourteen collections, along with early uncollected poems. A New Zealander, Stead's family connections in that country start in the early 1830s, and his poems reflect this background. He has also travelled widely, and the poems have travelled with him. He is a writer - novelist, literary historian and critic, as well as poet - who occupies literature like a landscape, his poetry deep-rooted in classical and European literary traditions, at ease in an international literary community. Collected Poems reveals a craft deepening decade by decade, a growing delight in its supple possibilities.

With C.K.Stead's Foreword and a section of his notes illuminating the background to many of the poems, this Collected Poems is an essential compendium of the poetry of a major writer.

'For the past half century I have been a huge admirer of Karl Stead's poetry: topographical, amatory, lyrical and satirical. Here at last between the covers of one book is the essential Stead, in all its richness and variety.' - Barry Humphries

'Few poets can aspire to the combination of intelligence, lyricism, passion and honesty that are the hallmarks of Karl Stead's work. Born in New Zealand, Stead is revealed by his poetry as an intuitive, thoughtful and sensually responsive vagabond of the world, one whose rare gift it is to inhabit the moment - be it past or present - and bring it, burning, into life. He is a poet who can speak, not to one country, but to us all.' - Miranda Seymour

'C. K. Stead's Collected Poems deserves to be seen as an important contribution to the literature of the English-speaking world. His talent is more than ambidextrous. To excel as a poet, novelist and critic is rarer than we tend to think, and Karl Stead has managed it.' - Karl Miller

Cover painting: Cohn McCahon, Titinongi cupboard door, c. 1953 (Auckland Art Gallery). Cover design by StephenRaw.com.