Like Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery, Schuyler started life as a poet in the New York School, and has always sought to make a virtue of observing [and recording] random details and attitudes as simply as possible….

The point of this style is that it transforms nothing. And that, as Schuyler must be fed up with hearing, is also its problem. Sentimentality, mawkishness, stupidity and boastfulness are all writ large—so much so that they dwarf the occasional intelligent remark or moment of lyrical intensity. But the consequence is not only pulverising boredom for the reader—particularly in the 60-page title poem. It's also frustration for the writer. The ostensible purpose of concentrating on the quotidian is 'to say, to see and say, things / as they are'. But in practice every 'thing' he sees is mutilated and crushed by the remorseless subjectivity he brings to bear on it. (p. 22)