Intense and pristine lyrics by a poet living in the age of AIDS. He takes his subject head-on without a shred of sentimentality or self-pity. In spite of its difficult subject, this is not a dark book. Gregory Orr has said of Donnelly that everything he writes is suffused with tenderness and intelligence, lucidity and courage. This is Donnelly s first book."

The Wind from Vulture Peak addresses the history of the gradual incorporation of Buddhist concepts into Heian waka poetry and the development among court poets of a belief in the production of that poetry as a Buddhist practice in itself.