Was the Cyclops a psychopathic monster out to way-lay and eat those unfortunate enough to encounter him, or a lonely creature given to impossible loves, who did nothing to deserve his terrible reputation? Fred Beake's new book gives curious readers an opportunity to reassess their own psyches in the light of a gifted modern poet's version of the classical myth. The book also contains original poems, themselves verging on myth, and a fine essay on the significance of myth in and for our times.

Fred Beake grew up in the rural West Riding of Yorkshire. His thirty years of work as a poet reveal 'a personally realised impresonal vision' (Jon Silkin), a vision emanating form an often surreal, sometimes seditious quest for meaning on the other side of music and myth. The present volume is his fourth substantial collection since 'The Whiteness of her Becoming' (1992).