Book excerpt: Before his death, Dylan Thomas said of Vernon Watkins, "I think him to be the most profound and greatly accomplished Welshman writing poems in English." Since that time Watkins has published a series of distinguished volumes which have brought him to the forefront of contemporary English poets. This paperback selection is designed to bring the work of Vernon Watkins to the wide audience which it so well merits. The choice of poems has been made by the poet himself and is drawn from five earlier books, covering the period 1930-1960. (It replaces the hardbound Selected Poems which New Directions published in 1918.)