The closing of Books Inc. in the Castro last month and the opening of Dog Eared Books (489 Castro) where A Different Light once existed has gotten me thinking about bookstores and the literary world of San Francisco.

Blend together a sudden pandemic of a potentially fatal STD, a reactionary federal government impervious to our plight, the ACT UP movement and other gay responses, and you have the ingredients for a true cultural moment.

Not only does the "Manly Health" series add significantly to our trove of Whitmania, it helps fill in one of the least well-known periods of the poet's life.