Boys at Twilight Pa

I sometimes wonder why young writers allow their publishers to talk them into releasing a "selected poems" volume. Almost invariably, they will come to see much of their earliest work as a development, not a finished product. That fact is very much in evidence in this work. Maxwell makes selections from his first 3 books, and each book is more accomplished than the one before. His formalism becomes more assured with each successive book. As such, I recommend this book to people interested in Maxwell from his other works, or who are interested in neo-formal poetry in general. Be aware, though, that you can't judge the whole book by the first few poems.