Roger Mitchell explores the small histories of the self in the larger world, intent on giving everything its just place and name. The poems roam over field and seashore and city, "inventing a world so similar to the world itself/ it becomes the world". Whether musing on the past or searching for "something even memory can't reach", Mitchell faces up to "the wobble of most things human", with a combination of stoicism and wonder and a language as supple as the spoken word.