"Certain Chance is a rediscovery of the world that allows us to look at everyday realities - an orange, a city, an ocean, an automobile - as if the poet had placed these things in a kind of still-life painting. We see them from new perspectives that newly enable us to appreciate their color, contour, use, and meaning. Even love is seen from an unusual angle - the poet focuses on the mysterious intricacies and difficulties of intimate dialogue. As he develops these images and themes, Salinas often includes self-conscious reflections on the nature of poetic expression, the battle against the blank page, the rage for order."--BOOK JACKET.