Poet Tom Raworth has remained steadfastly independent of literary fashions, movements, and cliques throughout a poetic career spanning 50 years. As When is the first selection of Raworth's writing to address the full scope and range of his work, from the first poem he ever shared with anyone outside his family, "You Were Wearing Blue," to his most recently published poem, "Surfing the Permafrost Through Methane Flares." The collection includes prose work and notational pieces that were intentionally left out of his Collected Poems, along with poems that were only published in small magazines or as ephemeral cards and broadsides. Some pieces appear in correct, definitive versions for the first time.