Nominated for the 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award, and "Publisher's Weekly" "Best Books '96". Alan Shapiro was the recipient of the Lila Wallace "Reader's Digest" Writer's Award for 1991.

This is the coming-of-age story of an American Jew and aspiring writer in the 1960s and 1970s. In this memoir in six movements, Alan Shapiro recalls how poetry helped him make sense of his own and other people's lives. Events unfold, including his sister's death, which make him reconsider the transformative power of art and accept the limitations of poetry in confronting the untransformable pain of mortal loss.