"These poems seem to have emerged almost organically from the land from which they’ve been wrought. Giving us a long history of what shape desire and love have taken in rural Appalachia, the poet speaks with a voice as urgent and clear as a mountain spring. In a poem that’s half directive, half fable, “Heart,” the reader learns how to test a goat’s: “pull the lips up, press/ the gums pale, then release.” Turning from the facts of the world inward, the poet manages to turn an array of emotions into more physical experiences; the color rushes back to the gums if nothing’s awry, and I, along with the speaker, am surprised by my own surprise at finding “all a ribcage contains and/ the warmth in can release.”
