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“A�� is an epic poem, over 800 pages, which Louis Zukofsky began in 1927. It wasn’t published in its complete form until 1978, the same year he died. It’s broken into 24 sections, opening with themes of horses and music, specially Bach, which are repeated throughout. The final section is a musical score by his wife with four voices, which takes up a quarter of the poem’s length. Zukofsky said his poem should be read literally, and I took him up on it, though I had no choice. I could pick out autobiographical pieces on his wife and son, World War II through Vietnam, and other historical tidbits. He reaches backwards, too, to Homer and Spinoza, among others. But I can’t really say what the poem is about, other than it’s about a life, in all its dimensions. That’s enough. The deeper I got into it, the less I got out of it, but that’s just me. The signposts became more abstract. Maybe it had to do with my regiment of reading a book a week. It took Zukofsky a lifetime to write this, I probably need a similar span to digest it.