Death is a tiny cough. The marble of the music in the palaces and tents breeds its day, burning like Manhattan. Back in 1994, when David Rowbotham released his New and Selected Poems, 1945-1993, a flurry of reviews appeared in the major newspapers and magazines remarking on how richly Rowbotham deserved more recognition as one of Australia's major poets of the past century. But if he is the most major of our neglected poets, what is remarkable is that Rowbotham has continued to write sixty years on, in a confident and lucid voice that transcends single continents and cultures. Poems for America is certain to earn Rowbotham that elusive literary Oscar.