The Blue Marble Gazetteer

It's hard to imagine a poet who could take more joy in nature, both earthly and human. In Blue Marble Gazetteer, David Leff looks closely, always, and revels in the names of things; the catalogs of species that recur throughout are delicious to mind and ear. Still, an elegiac tone haunts the book; David loves the planet as much as he fears for its demise. But this "world of open wounds" is blessed with fellow sojourners: the poet's wife and children, his neighbors, and all the beings of the natural world who­-like the hermit thrush whose whistles "penetrate...the heart's own thickets"-provide ongoing comfort. Blue Marble Gazetteer is a marvel, a final gift from a poet whose exuberant spirit is very much alive in his poems. ­-Clare Rossini, author of Lingo