Essentials: Poems and Consolations

It is not a coincidence that this book will slide easily into your jacket pocket; you ll want to keep it close for unexpected moments, those gifts of small, beckoning spaciousness amidst all our obligations and necessities.

In addition to works written over a span of many years, plus one new poem and one new essay, the book contains David s personal reflections for many of the pieces, providing deeper context to its meaning.

In some ways an artistic representation of a close circle of companionship to the work and to the man : edited by his wife, and designed and typeset by close friends Edward Wates and John Nielson, the book forms an elegant testament to David Whyte's most closely-held understanding - that human life cannot be apportioned out as one thing or another; rather, it is best lived as a living conversation, a way between and beyond, made beautiful by darkness as well as light, at its essence both deeply solitary and profoundly communal.