I'd never heard of the late L.E. Sissman till I went to a reading of poems from this book at Harvard. Peter Davison and John Updike reminisced about him and read his wonderful story-poems with zest and humor and real tenderness. Was there ever a poet who wrote about his youth with more manic joy, or about his own dying (from Hodgkin's disease) with more unblinking frankness? I doubt it, and I doubt that there is another poet of his generation (the sixties) who wrote with such immediate accessability--he's a poet every American dog or cat can understand and enjoy. What a find! Thank you Mr. Davison for bringing him back into print.