Before Dawn on Bluff Road / Hollyhocks in the Fog

"Captivating . . . So precise are Kleinzahler’s regional descriptions that a newcomer would be able to separate the East Coast poems from the West Coats poems without being told which are which. Too many poets these days seem to be allergic to a sense of place, as though rooting their work in a region would somehow shackle it to the mundane. But that quality of being grounded in parts of the country—places where there’s a specificity to the way the light hits your eyes and the air hits your nostrils—is one of the things that makes Kleinzahler’s poetry so appealing."—Jeff Gordinier, The New York Times Book Review

"August Kleinzahler brings together the best poems about the two places that helped shape his life . . . The result is a distinctive urban beauty that is sometimes gritty and often surprisingly lovely . . . Together, the two parts of the book convey the idea that sometimes two complementary opposites are necessary to satisfy a wandering spirit and fuel a writer’s growth."—Elizabeth Lund, The Washington Post

"The excellence of every poem in this beautifully designed and rigorously selected double collection reinforces the significance of his project. As Kleinzahler’s twelfth collection, this should confirm, if any doubts remain, that this winner of the Griffin Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award is among the best American poets writing today."—Michael Autrey, Booklist (starred review)