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My favorite of his earliest books, read and reread, reread now hearing that he has died. So wonderful on so very many levels. The quick darkness in “The Underground.�� The sharp juxtapositions and density of “Shelf Life.�� And high above all the long title poem, the one that had me trying to copy him for months, stretching narrative out along a line that is both journey and stations, both going and pausing along the way, the intrusion of death, the entrance even of politics without ever letting go of art. Magnificent flagstone of a book.

A favored bit among dozens:

"Then I thought of the tribe whose dances never fail / For they keep dancing till they sight the deer."
- "Station Island" IX