Dalachinsky was born in 1946,
Brooklyn, New York, "right after the last big war and has managed to survive lots of little wars", which is how he is frequently described. He grew up in the
Midwood section of the borough that was mostly an Italian and Jewish neighborhood with parents who were
working class and a sister, Judy. Dalachinsky graduated from
Midwood High School and briefly attended
Brooklyn College. Dalachinsky related that writing process was as if "spontaneity mixed with a conscious pushing" and a "descriptive transformation". The collection was honored in 2007 with a
PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award. The book is also unusual because not only is it documenting the music, but also Dalachinsky's state of mind at the precise moment of capturing a musical phrase. Sometimes when Gayle's performance came with a sermon or lecture, commenting on topics like abortion or racial separatism, The poems were written over 20 years and described by Kaufman as, "ash can sonatas to lovemaking with wife, eating out in restaurants, illness, cancelled hopes, money worries, cash scores, tenant complaints, landlord humiliations and ruminations on drug addiction". In his review of the book in
Sensitive Skin,
Valery Oisteanu wrote: "The free-wheeling Dalachinsky jumps easily from free verse to concrete poetry, from chaotic typography to whimsical designs, word constructions and deconstructions, puns, sound percussion ('tachada, tachada'), plays on names and words à la Duchamp or 'mailtrate de la langue a la Americane'". The poems were written over 34 years and described by Oisteanu as, "a dream-like literary mindscape peppered with head-spinning references, using an erudite knowledge, ostentatious name-dropping and a post-beatnik morphistic narrative of rare synchronicity. A perfect collage of cut-ups; train-of-thought à la Allen Ginsberg; an awkwardly unsettling geography laced with hidden meaning". Addressing a loved one, Dalachinsky writes: ==Readings, collaborations and writings==