In this companion volume to The Tree of Meaning, Robert Bringhurst collects twenty essays under the subversive principle that "everything is related to everything else." His studies build upon this sense of basic connection, and involve the work of poets, musicians, and philosophers as varied as Ezra Pound, John Thompson, Don McKay, Empedokles, Parmenides, Aristotle, Skaay, Plato, George Clutesi, Elizabeth Nyman, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Dennis Lee, and Glenn Gould.
The value Bringhurst places on the process of translation, the dialogue between one language and another, and the sheer experience of witnessing translation by reading and hearing poems, stories, and songs in their original languages is another strong presence in this collection. Accompanying the English narrative are passages in Tlingit, Haida, Chinese, Greek, German, Cree, and Russian, for readers who want to find the patterns and taste some of the vocabulary for themselves, for those interested in meeting the languages partway.