In these new poems, Tony Harrison confronts the unspeakable terrors of the twentieth century. The title poem is the text of his new BBC film poem, The Gaze of the Gorgon, which takes the terrifying creature of legend who turns men to stone as a metaphor for the horrors unleashed in modern warfare. In other poems, such as The Mother of the Muses and the Sonnets for August 1945, Harrison forges his own response to these dark times through the element of fire, seeking - in the source of terror itself - the heart of eloquence and celebratory love. The book includes his powerful Gulf War poems which the Sunday Times called 'mordant masterpieces' and the Times Literary Supplement 'fierce and sardonic'. Winner of the Whitbread Poetry Award.