In these poems, Richard Nester has created an irresistible literary carpentry studded with stunning phrasing and deft wit, a work both retrospective and fully present, in which his powers of introspection are couched in language poignant and charming. “I look back now because I can,” he writes in the title poem. And, in doing so, he takes us along, his journey becoming ours, “the bricked-off cat in all our veins.” Here is a juxtaposition of the ordinary against imagery so rich it feels like turning back the corner of a plain quilt and finding it stitched with gold.
—Ricki Mandeville, author of A Thin Strand of Lights
Richard Nester finds philosophy in the most basic items and acts. Keys, cows, a trip to the zoo, cutting brush all turn into lessons in morality and mortality, belief and mendacity in his adept hands.
—G. Murray Thomas, author of My Kidney Just Arrived and Cows on the Freeway
There’s danger in these pages: snakes, bad weather, parents, marriage. But there is peace as well, sometimes ironically enough in the same images. These poems are epigrammatic and large, lovely in their capaciousness, witty and dark. Come feast.
—Wendy Battin, author of In Solar Wind and Little Apocalypse