Octavo. (x) (78)pp. Levine's fifth book, the title poem of which stands as one of the most powerful poetic statements to arise from the tumult of the late 1960s. Composed from a dream in the summer of 1968, Levine called it "the most potent expression of rage I have written, rage at my government for the two racial wars we were then fighting, one in the heart of our cities against our urban poor, the other in Asia against a people determined to decide their own fate. The poem was written one year after what in Detroit is still called "The Great Rebellion" although the press then and now titled it a race riot. I had recently revisited the city of my birth, and for the first time I saw myself in the now ruined neighborhoods of my growing up not as the rebel poet but as what I was, middle-aged, middle-class, and as one writer of the time would have put it "part of the problem." Out of a dream and out of the great storm of my emotions the poem was born." The present copy presents something of a bibliographical curiosity: this title was published as a trade paperback original; therefore, no hardcover copies have been noted to exist. This copy is in the publisher's blue cloth, title stamped in gilt on the spine. Since no such copies have surfaced, it is not known whether a dust jacket would have accompanied what was likely a handful of copies specially bound for presentation, as is the case with our copy. Sunning to extremities - especially to spine. Near fine overall.