Undeniably noir. Less convincingly poetry, at least to this poor reader of poetry. Actually it reminded me of James Ellroy who has covered a fair bit of this kind of 40s in L.A. ground and has made a reasonable stab at noir poetry himself in books like White Jazz. Robertson is more concerned here with the city and how it is failing its inhabitants and its homeless. There is a real sense of urgency as the rise of McCarthyism mirrors the creeping sense of unease about modern America and how it is failing its most vulnerable citizens today.