Pinsky's exploration of the interplay between public and private history and the connection of both to present-day life is well-documented. A wellknown comment on the state of affairs within his own country—and within his own life—appears in his 1979 publication of a book-length poem called An Explanation of America . In this book, he divides the country into three main areas as indicated by the section titles: "Its Many Fragments," "Its Great Emptiness," and "Its Everlasting Possibility."

When History of My Heart appeared five years later, the majority of its poems reflected the culture and society of the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which Pinsky was writing. America was still a nation of contradictions, still a fragmented land of both great emptiness and everlasting possibility.

The most dominant American figure of the 1980s was Ronald Reagan, president for nearly the entire decade and symbol of...