Over the last five years, Sharon Olds'' poetry has become widely read and celebrated in Britain.

Frank and exhilarating, sensual and profound, the poems stare, unblinking, at sex and death and love - showing these things to us in all their raw beauty.

This striking new collection is a sequence of poems that reaches into the very wellspring of life. The poems take us back to the womb, to childhood, to a searing sexual awakening, to the shock of birth, the wonder and humour of parenthood - and finally to the depths of adult love.

Always bold, musical and honest, The Wellspring plunges us into the essence of experience. This is a highly charged, sinuous, passionate book from one of the finest poets writing today.