One of Levine's earliest collections (1968) of poems. It primarily covers a lot of the usual themes that Levine will work out to better use in the years after. For those who don't much about him he was born in the 1930's in Detroit of an Eastern European Jewish heritage. Much of his work refers back to his childhood and references both the Spanish Civil War and World War II at times. Much of it references his working life in Detroit among the mills and auto plants as a young man. It does have a social and a political slant but even so he is my favorite contemporary american poet--so I would recommend though '7 years from somewhere' and 'They feed they lion' and 'The names of the lost' which followed fairly closely after this book to me are better works. ( )