S. VI–X: „Foreword“ von Mike Shields, „Editor“ von Orbis (Nuneaton, Warwickshire), zuständig für den Vertrieb des Bandes in Großbritannien. S. XI–XII: „Author’s Introduction“, die mit den Sätzen schließt: „I sometimes suspect that translating a lot of poetry has stopped me from writing more poetry of my own: one slips in and out of the poetic personality of others so often that one is in danger of losing one’s own. But considering that most of the poets I have translated are better poets than I am, literature will, on balance, have gained.“