by William Kloefkorn, poet laureate of Nebraska

In these compelling poems the reader travels more with history than through it. Patrick Hicks takes us to many places, among them Barcelona, Berlin, and Belfast, as he reflects upon the mystery of existence, of what it means to be alive where the "poisonous ghosts of history" challenge and haunt us. I admire the variety of subjects that the poems reflect — regret and wonder, concern and disdain, compassion and hope. The voice in these poems is honest and recognizable. It wants what most of us want — to find meaningful identification with the past no less than the present. Carrying history on his back like a knapsack, and aware of the vagaries of chance, Hicks looks to what, for him, finally matters: one person loving another.

by David Allan Evans, poet laureate of South Dakota

These poems come out of real, actual, lived experiences, a rare thing these days. Hicks seems to have absorbed the work of some of the best poets in that same vein in the past half century: Theodore Roethke, Robinson Jeffers, James Dickey, Seamus Heaney, to name a few. What I find remarkable about Hicks' poems in this collection is that they can simultaneously accommodate not only personal but national, international, and even evolutionary phenomena. Hicks is the kind of poet I go for: straight-forward, clear, tough-minded, knowledgeable, accessible, memorable. He has experienced much in his young life; he has taken the time to inform himself on the facts of history and science; and he writes with insight, power, and passion.