This volume is the fourth in the popular series that began with Ten Poems to Change Your Life. Since this is the last collection of poems in the series, Roger Housden has thrown in an extra one for good measure. In the introduction, he says that he hopes these poems arouse and deepen the love within us, for life, and for the world around us. He calls these ten he has chosen as "contemporary classics" since they "give voice in a unique and eloquent way to timeless themes." The poets who are included in this book are Billy Collins, Hayden Carruth, Fleur Adcock, Rainer Maria Rilke, Dorianne Laux, D.H. Lawrence, James Wright, John Keats, Naomi Shihab Nye, Seng-Ts'an and Mary Oliver. A few of the themes covered in these poems are ecstasy, pain, happiness, trust, and death. These poems nourish the soul and that is the role Housden intended them to play in our lives.