The Canadian Karen Solie is rapidly establishing a reputation as one of the most essential voices at work in poetry today. Her latest book has at its heart the figure of St Ethernan, a seventh-century Irish missionary to Scotland who retreated to the caves of the Fife coast in order to decide whether to establish a priory on May Island or pursue a life of solitude. His decision would have been informed by realities of war, misinformation and power; Solie imagines this crisis also complicated by grief, confusion - and a faith placed under extreme duress.Woven through Ethernan's story are poems that orbit the caves' location, while ranging across the recurrent violences of history and myth, of personal and public record. The Caiplie Caves is a profound and timely consideration of the nature of crisis: in poems of the utmost lyric subtlety and argumentative strength, Solie addresses how we might distinguish self-delusion from belief, belief from knowledge - and how, in the frailty of our responses, we can find the courage to move forward.''Solie's work should be read wherever English is read.' Michael Hofmann, London Review of Books