So after rediscovering A Coney Island of the Mind, I found a copy of A Far Rockaway of the Heart in my local bookstore. It's such a pleasure to have new poems by a poet so dear to my heart. The book is so crisp, so hard to keep open, the virgin spine aching for the first crease.

His poetry (forty years after Coney Island) has become much richer. Though it still has a wonderful light, easy tone, I find the imagery a bit more filling, more layered. You feel his consciousness of history, personal and private, but he still sounds like a god friend having a crazy late night conversation.

I'm amazed, almost on every page, to find poems that so effortlessly take in the history of America, Hieronymous Bosch, an entire childhood, the rise and fall of Ezra Pound and so much more.