Celebrated by Ronald Johnson, Guy Davenport, Joanne Kyger, and many others, William Benton has been making books of poems, big and small, since the late 60s. He is the author of “Madly,” a novel, which has been reprinted several times, but his poetic work, outside of a small coterie of fans, has not received the attention it deserves. Perhaps Light on Water will change that, as it gathers the best of Benton's poems with selections from his sonically adventurous (non) translations of Stepháne Mallarmé's poetry ("Marmalade"), the early concrete poems of "Birds," recently republished in full length by the great Nightboat Books; the experimental poem-as-novel, "Eye La View"; and the gem-like lyrics of "Backlit" and "A Beautiful Smile".