Speak Low is the tenth book from one of America{u2019}s most distinctive{u2014} and one of poetry{u2019}s most essential{u2014}contemporary voices. These new poems are of a piece with Phillips{u2019}s previous work in their characteristic clarity and originality of thought, in their unsparing approach to morality and psychology, and in both the strength and startling flexibility of their line. Speak Low is the record of a powerful vision that, in its illumination of the human condition, has established itself as a necessary step toward our understanding of who we are in the twenty-first century.