"[Pockell] focuses on poems that have fueled the American identity. Covering 400 years, the poems range from classic, to familiar (and for nostalgics, poems most likely memorized and recited), to those that touch upon the seminal events in America's history. The collection aims to present an evolving American 'voice' while following the country's growth in human rights, feminism and diversity. A short author bio prefaces each selection . . . A work that serves as reference, comfort, and a reminder poetry's significance in the everyday experience of American life, this is a volume worthy of any shelf."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Wheeler’s poetry doesn’t shy from difficulty, complexity or confusion . . . Wheeler holds a door open for the jumble of history: Dutch painting and British theology room with old riddles and New York Times articles . . . Economics and emotion face each other across a charged field; stuff gathers in the middle, glittery as a sack of diamonds.”—Joshua Clover, The New York Times Book Review

"Averno may be her masterpiece. Certainly it demonstrates that she is writing at the peak of her powers . . . The 18 poems in Averno, rich and resonant—with intricately linked imagery, overlapping themes, recurring characters—form a unified collection, but one in which each part never fails to speak for the whole."—Nicholas Christopher, The New York Times Book Review

"The Biplane Houses offers challenges and pleasures to readers who appreciate that 'punning moves toward music.'"—San Francisco Chronicle