“In addition to extracting coal from the Appalachian region, the coal industry has also removed human lives, history, culture, local economy, and Nature itself. It is almost impossible to realize some people struggle to survive where they come from, because where they come from is being destroyed. The poems in this fine collection are formally deft and play along to mountain music. But the truth is not blunted by the art; the art only makes the truth more bitter.”
—Maurice Manning
“These poems are ringing elegies for lost American time and space—time to oneself, space to call one’s own. Jacob Strautmann’s lines are bruised and deepened by infinite stuff, by debris, detritus, melodies, memories. Past and present twist together, foreground and background shift and slip; the poet wanders open-hearted through this charred and littered landscape, the one moving thing, still casting seeds, upturning hope, unearthing beauty.”
—Glyn Maxwell