“Much is made of beginnings and endings, the first line of a poem or its closing stanza. We see critical attention given to prize-winning debuts, collected bodies of work, and books published posthumously. But what about middles? The volta of the writing life, so to speak.”

“I offer this prelude on the torn, sprained bodies of poem and poet as an introduction to three books by Toby Martinez de las Rivas, whose religiously inflected poems are strenuous in the sense that they understand the work of poetry in terms of strain. Strain is one word for song.”

“Indeed, the best poets recognize that language, like a single atom, must be ruptured in order to unbridle all the energies buried deep inside.” — Sarah D’Stair