At his apex, Rod McKuen was the unofficial poet-laureate of America. Penning best-selling songs, composing classical music and film scores, and, in his own right, enjoying a certain stature as a recording artist mixing his poetry and lyrics in a series of well received albums, delivered in a reedy voice fractured by years of singing in nightclubs, McKuen was adored by his legions of fans. "In the sad, minimal world of Rod and his eager know-nothing millions," as one critic describes the poet's rapport with his audience, life exists in an ineffable mist of kittens and sheep dogs and chance encounters in parks and on public transportation. The poet of foggy afternoons and post-coital introspection, McKuen was, in the words of critic, David Harsent, a poet with "a formula likely to appeal to the groupies and the grannies alike" with a "neoplastic pleonasm rooted...