In this poem of 624 sonnets, " . . In the half-mad tradition of the Italian Futurists (Marinetti et al.), Ted Berrigan, and the brilliant scribblers of Oulipo, Viscusi has constructed a wonderful machine for generating sonnets, an effort that reproduces the equally demented project of Ellis Island itself."NMac Wellman..

Robert Viscusi was born on April 4, 1941, at St. Catherine's Hospital in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to Joseph Viscusi, a mechanic, and Vera Di Rocco, a dressmaker. Viscusi's grandparents were all immigrants from Italy who passed through Ellis Island. They never forgot Italy, though they never returned there.