Known primarily as a narrative poet, William Driscoll is above all a storyteller and the guises he affects from poem to poem, as varied and rich as that of an adolescent girl afraid of her own budding desires to that of an old man looking back on lost longing are at once assorted and convincing. His poetry falls squarely into a category that Emerson once called "portfolio poetry," verse produced with little thought of notoriety or allegiance to prevailing styles. This gives the poems a fresh unique quality, a nonconformity, while providing the poet with the freedom to be unconventional. A collection of his early work, though deeply personal, the poetry in Lyrics strikes the universal themes of young love, sorrow, joy, fear of death and the ache of longing that should touch a chord in every reader's heart.