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These poems reflect a classical education, rich experience, and love of words. Eclectic style and subject, they include epigrams, long poems, narratives, prayers and "constructivism," the reweaving of a text. For the last example, Turnbull transmutes thoughts and images from Bunyan's autobiography. Other more personal poems, like "Twenty Words, Twenty Days," express his experiences as a doctor, father and husband in a style similar to T.S. Eliot's. He also has connections to Canada throughout his medical career, and recalls in several poems his time in Iroquois Falls. A dry wit emerges in "Now That April's Here" and "On the Somme," an antiwar reflection, but a clear love and respect for the common person ever informs his work.

For his imagery, Turnbull often pays homage to the skills of other artisans, such as Sode and Turner. "The sun has disappeared leaving part of itself adherent to / several fragments of vapour. ... The blue / has taken the strain by splitting into radial fissures of / indigo. Tack it together somehow with rivets of / carmine." Here are the haze and flames of the Fighting Temeraire captured in words. Then comes the drumming alliteration of Skelton, or even "Beowulf" "Brewer of beakers, / bitter's your liquor! / Froth is a ferment for / fools." The poet retreats from thsi boisterous energy into the quiet prayers of "For Us: An Invocation and a Processional," a personal religious experience. This collection will amuse and delight and instruct.'