"This volume brings together poems from six collections originally published between 1990 and 2011. I have divided the selection into five sections that correspond, broadly, to the separate stages in which they were written. The final and briefest one includes five fragments from Perros en la playa [Dogs on the Beach], a miscellany of prose, poetry and aphorisms that I published in early 2011.
In my opinion, a Selected should not solely contain poems that have been often anthologised or singled out for praise by critics and readers. It should give a more or less accurate view of the variety and development of one's output over the years. Therefore, I have not shied away from including some youthful pieces or the odd experiment--not to mention poems for which one feels an immoderate fondness, which no amount of critical scrutiny can ever hope to dispel." --Jordi Doce
"I celebrate this selection of poems in English translation by the remarkably gifted and productive poet, Jordi Doce. His meditative lyrics are contemporary exemplars of a profound strand in the braided poetic traditions of Spain--I think of Unamuno, Antonio Machado, Luis Cernuda. But they are more than that. In part, it may also be his wide reading in English poetry and the excellence of his own translations of English poets that seem to have opened his way for him. [...] It's a book of philosophical solitude, yet at the same time it's a celebration of friends and companions. Lawrence Schimel's translations, too, are fluent." --Reginald Gibbons