Thomas Kinsella's Selected Poems is proof of how acutely the artist has answered his own description of poetry as a way of "eliciting order from significant experience." The formal landscapes, severely tested faith, and the creative myths of the 60s and 70s resulted in an allegorical element that turned downward in the psyche toward origin and myth during the decades that followed. The themes and forms of the early to middle period have only deepened in the most recent poems as the poet reckons the personal and public significance of final things. Kinsella's art has become a shining example, the avant-garde, in short, of artistic courage and commitment.