The idea of love is at the core of The Arrow Maker. Different poems present examples of it in very different senses - love of community or children, kindness to strangers, care for the environment, concern for the suffering. Diverse as these takes on love may seem, we're encouraged to think about the relationship between them by others that express the idea in more general terms: "St Francis in Winter", "The Buddha Amit?bha", and three translations from Dante. Black's tone is far from didactic, though. His whole approach is humane and open-minded, pragmatic as well as tentatively visionary, and suffused by gentle humour.

Subtle thinking in poetry demands subtlety of syntax and metre. A remarkable triumph in this way is "Self-Reliance", in which a single arc of thought evolves through a complex, 21 line sentence. This is beautifully paced to suggest meditative deliberation while maintaining a steady momentum. In the end it gathers to a quietly startling climax that changes your perspective on everything that's gone before. Throughout the whole book, Black shows himself a master of the self-questioning cadence and rhythms suggesting the pursuit of an elusive idea.

Such sensitivity of construction allows the poems to present thought through constantly shifting angles. They're also enriched by intertextual reference. Admittedly, few people will be familiar with all the cultural contexts informing this book. "Classical", a compassionate reflection on Ezra Pound's treasonable support for Mussolini, shows how skilfully Black serves both those who do pick up the relevant allusions and those who don't. There are poignant gains in resonance for those who know Pound's life and recognize references to the Cantos. However, by refiguring Mussolini as a cottaging seducer and Pound as his silly victim Black both makes the poem meaningful for those who're vague about Pound and - blasting things into a wider perspective - makes his fall one tragic instance of general human frailty:

You with an ear and eye
as sharp as any in poetry, fell for that pumped-up
fraudster's bombast and forgot
that courage lay in mastering vanity
and not in swooning when some manly jawbone
beckoned you to the latrines...