If you're a Mark Doty fan, there's no reason not to have this book - its contents reveal the younger poet working his way toward the greater expanse of his more mature poetry. It lends a neat perspective to Doty's later work. Is by no means his best, but hey. Neat anyway.

Fans experienced in Doty's unique vision of our world will appreciate this early collection combining his first two volumes (now out of print). Certainly lacking the later intensity which would define this celebrated poet (Atlantis' "Homo Will Not Inherit" and Sweet Machine's finest: "Mercy on Broadway"), these poems account for the poet's youth, a topic later dismissed following the sucess of My Alexandria. The artist here is very much in development yet still images describing genuine affection for our decaying world prevail (a theme consistently "Doty"). Turtle, Swan's title poem introduces Wally Roberts, though it's hardly a lamenting cry that we'll see later in Heaven's Coast. Beauty exists here. From an ancient Egyptian headdress to a senile old neighbor, Doy examines his world in scientific detail: a talent which not only inspires delicate, lyrical poems but also heals a breaking spirit, focusing the voice on anything lustrous. Isn't that why we read Doty? To, if only for an instance, see the world as he does: fashionable and redemptive--"our miracle / our hour"?