The Essential Baxter

James K. Baxter (1926-1972) was a man of contradictions: a complex and gifted poet who spent much of his time exercising a concern for society's outcasts. Less-known are Baxter's forays into written prose and public speaking. Laced with the humour, passion and everday detail of his poetry, this selection of his writings explores those issues which made Baxter's life and work central to the New Zealand experience.