Kathleen Raine was born to a Scottish mother and an English father in London. She began to write poetry seriously at Cambridge where she studied natural sciences and psychology and met like-minded writers and artists. In 1990, with the help of the Prince of Wales, Raine established the Temenos Academy which aims to 'teach and disseminate' the spiritual wisdom of every civilisation. Artist, Victoria Crowe, has found Raine's verse a rich source of inspiration. This is only one of a series of portraits of the poet in her old age Crowe produced in the 1980s and 1990s.