“This poet has the kind of binocular vision that can see the poetic and scientific aspects of the world simultaneously. . . . this shuffling together of lyrical/botanical and medical language is done so gracefully, it has the effect of bringing ‘the two cultures’ into a rare state of peaceful coexistence.”

—Billy Collins

“What distinguishes Laura McCullough’s outstanding The Wild Night Dress is its refusal to settle for the familiar turns and tropes of wisdom, the temptations of which must have been pulling at the edges of every stanza. Instead McCullough commits herself to a project that’s rougher, more daring: a science of her own in which two concurrent losses—the death of a mother, the end of a long relationship—become a door to a place she can’t yet see. ‘I’m ready to learn another language, a new / syntax.’ And that desire is astonishingly here, poem after poem.”

—Paul Lisicky

“The colossal fortitude and lyric pitch of Laura McCullough’s intellect in its search to find the figures and music to accompany the challenges and exuberance of living today leave us sprawling in wonder at her rich talents and more resilient for she names the fires that burn inside us. The Wild Night Dress is the indisputable evidence we need to intercept any doubts about the vibrancy of contemporary poetry.”

—Major Jackson