After the Digging provides an exceptional look at the early work of acclaimed poet Alan Shapiro His first collection of poems allows readers to realize his strong sense of historical narrative and gives them reference on how to read his later poems Inspired by his time at Stanford in the late seventies the book is divided into two parts the first is a seuence on the Irish Famine in the mid nineteenth century the second a series on demonic possession in late seventeenth century New England These poems give voice to the pain and delusion of those from other periods and inevitably recall the many evils of our own centuryPowerful That a young poet can handle this subject so well in a first book is a pleasure in itselfRobert von Hallberg Contemporary Literaturewikipedia.