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