An old friend, a new character – C. K. Stead is scribe to love and grief in this beautiful new collection. In two sequences the poet plays with the lines of history and love, the fictional and the autobiographical. Reflecting on a long career and familiar faces, the first sequence walks the reader from classical Rome to contemporary Aotearoa. Then in the shade of Parnell begins a tender address to a new character, Kezia, lover and friend just lost. Lyrical and deeply moving, In the Half Light of a Dying Day is a late-career masterpiece.