3.5 i love poetry, it is often soothing to me, makes me look at things in different ways. This book came in my Strand book box, and it was a poet of which I had never heard. It highlights the beauty of the natural world, some striking images are invoked. It is also about death, death due to AIDS, but also the natural death due to their natural cycle in nature. Sunflowers, green crabs and even mackerel. It is hard to describe poetry without including a sample, unless it is a widely known poet. Unfortunately, however, all the poems are too lengthy, and I would be thing way to long. So you'll have to take my word for it, if you enjoy poetry give this one a chance. ( )

At the time I first read this in 1995 I might have given it five stars. I loved it so. It was the first collection of poetry that I read hot off the presses and it was th first contemporary collection that felt essential to me. Now I chafe against the poems' easefulness, though it seems very unfair to call a book about losing one's lover to AIDS easeful. But what matters is that then I loved this book. Everything about it. ( )

A collections of poems using luminous descriptions of the physical world, both natural and manmade, to illuminate the longings of life -- a life attempting to come to terms with death. Haunting and inspiring. ( )