DEAR YIDDISH is a startlingly brave and candid rendering of life in the shadow of death. "Sex is over and death soon to come." The beauty of the language and perceptions make 'maturity' one with 'excellence.' Or, as Yeats put it, "Bodily decrepitude is wisdom." It is a celebration of the poet's Jewish heritage, of the roots of his love of language, of the whole of his life in a nutshell, of the drop on a nostril that is the last moment...