"Extreme of Things" is a large collection combining new poems with a thematic selection from recent books. It explores the duality of existence, a track which runs through all Jenny Joseph's work, whether for children or adults, in poetry or prose. This new book continues her attempt to present "how things work" at the core, at the edge. It begins with poems from her last two collections, "Ghosts and Other Company" (1995) and "All the Things I See" (2000), which lead to the body of new and previously uncollected poems in the second part. The "'Season Songs' from Persephone" (1986), her long out-of-print fictional work, are here reprinted as a bridge or interlude between the two main parts.