Duwell surveys the writing life of Andrew Taylor which, in his view, has so far only received fairly superficial and fragmented critical comment and 'awaits a detailed examination'. In considering the different stages of Taylor's development as a poet, Duwell's aim is 'to lay out the elements of that life and to suggest the parameters within which a more detailed discussion might take place'. He sees the overall image of Taylor's poetry as 'continuities inside radical changes of mode' and argues that Taylor's poetry is 'generated out of ... the dichotomy of absence and plenitude' (312).