Notable places in Holman's childhood included Devonport in Auckland and Blackball, a small town on the West Coast of the South Island.

[14] Holman has said that his Christian faith (often expressed in his work) was revived, in profound spiritual experiences, after the death of his partner Lee in a road accident near Otira in the winter of 1978.

[18] While in England, he read Ask That Mountain: The Story of Parihaka by historian Dick Scott, and decided to return to New Zealand and learn more about Māori culture.

This experience led to his enrolment in Māori language classes, kapa haka group membership, and the study of New Zealand's colonial history.

The award's judges said his poems "are redolent of senses of the South Island's West Coast: arms wide spread, wind, seas, ruggedness".

[4] After completing his PhD, Holman lectured part-time in English at the University of Canterbury and tutored at the Writers' Institute at Hagley Community College.

Helen Watson White, writing for Landfall, described it as "the book of a poet and scholar who adds spiritual illumination to a largely hidden subject".

[34] Murray Bramwell for the New Zealand Review of Books noted Holman "comes from the working world, and his poems affirm a sense of social justice and remembered hardship".

Chris Else for Landfall noted the "rudderless course" of Holman's early life, followed by "academic success, a discovery of Māoritanga ... and publication and acclaim as a poet, a historian and a memoirist".

He commented that the story "is enlivened throughout by Holman's eye for detail, his observations of the people he meets and his frank, often-ironic appraisal of his own weaknesses".

Paula Green described it as a book of two parts: "The first section retrieves invisible South Island histories while the second pays homage to wide ranging loves, other poets, friends, pressing concerns."