Silliman is known for several seminal long poems such as Tjanting and Ketjak, and he has been involved in writing the long "new sentence" (he coined the phrase) poem The Alphabet for over twenty years. The Age of Huts, published by Roof Books in 1986, has had a quieter reputation, despite its relatively concise display of Silliman's wide formal experimentation and mastery. "Sunset Debris" is, structurally, a collection of questions, but the cumulative affect of the queries is both giddily intoxicating and, subterraneously, melancholic, as the voice of personal entreaty become subsumed under the ceaseless rhythms of its literary method and, by extension, time and memory.