Selected Poems, 1969-1981

This generous selection from six previous books, with several uncollected poems, shows the consistency of [Shelton's] career and displays a pictorial gift that is truly remarkable: flowing through line after line, seemingly inexhaustible streams of images build an intelligible surrealistic vision, evoking emotional states with great subtlety.

* Booklist *

Shelton's book displays some of the best surrealistic American poetry today, and a steady pattern of growth. . . . Much of the recent work is enormously powerful.

* Library Journal *

Shelton's work has enormous variety, both stylistically and thematically. . . . Shelton writes about love and its loss, the death of his father, the scars of a son who never had his father's love. He writes with a singular love, awe and terror of life which lends these poems a haunted beauty.

* Publishers Weekly/