?Great poems' David Whyte has said ?are not about experience but are the experience itself
felt in the body.' Essentials is a collection of his own best poems each in their way about
capturing the experience itself whether that it is in the daily shifts the ever-turning
seasons or the bigger cycle of gain and grief that are part of our journey through life. Each
poem is accompanied by a short context on where and when it was written. Together they form 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. This updated edition includes poems from his 2021
collection Still Possible.
