Poetry. Translated from the Italian by Ruth Feldmann and James Laughlin. LIKE IT OR NOT is a thematically and stylistically linked volume of seven poems, a brief title poem followed by six extended ones, each prefaced by a pair of sharp epigraphs from writers as diverse as Swift, Proust, and Mishima. Ruffilli's style has been compared to the stream-of-consciousness method employed by Joyce and other novelists, the historical precedent for which is, interestingly, found in works of Sterne. Through associative and impressionistic methods, Ruffilli's poems build and sustain an intense atmosphere of rear, guilt, and desire--Michael Palma.