This collection travels many paths and by-ways, beside some of which lie burning cars, or a young man speechless on a forest floor, or girls lost far from home. And there is a lighthouse…Travellers pass along these ways, in the darkness, in transit, hoping for safe passage through unknown territory. All are imagined with what Sean O'Brien describes as Draycott’s ‘quizzical, exultant, exact music’. The Night Tree is Jane Draycott’s second book of poems, following Prince Rupert’s Drop, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation short listed for the Forward Prize in 1999, and two smaller collections, Tideway (Two Rivers Press, 2002, illustrated by Peter Hay) and No Theatre (Smith/Doorstop) short listed for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 1997.