William Matthews had completed AFTER ALL shortly before his death, just after his fifty-fifth birthday, in November 1997. In many poems in this collection, Matthews seems to be looking his last on all things appealing: music, food and wine, and love among them. He also evokes the death of his favorite jazz musician, Charles Mingus, speaks of cats, dogs, history--and especially, with his characteristic relaxed wit, of language and its quiddities.