“He knows how to strike to the center of a poem, fire a song and link the sparks together into an effective whole, stopping exactly at the point where the jagged edge whets the reader’s appetite for more.” —Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, The Washington Post Book World “This collection of both new and previously published poems showcases Eady’s enormous range as a chronicler of contemporary American life—class, race, family, gender, jazz and blues, and the distinctions between urban and rural environments all play a role in these impeccable lyrics. Eady’s plain- spoken, pragmatic voice is accessible yet distinct, and the experiences he describes (being a victim of discrimination, watching a tough-minded father die, surviving prostate cancer) manage to seem both intimate and universal. Eady writes of being “a black, / American poet” whose “greatest weakness / is an inability / to sustain rage.” But, given the breadth and nuance of his palette, perhaps that is his greatest strength.” -- The New Yorker “The widely respected poet and teacher, founder (with Toi Derricotte) of the Cave Canem poetry workshop, follows up his last collection, a finalist for the National Book Award, with new work reflecting on advancing middle age and his sometimes jarring transition from urban to rural dweller. The selected work spans the past seven years and joyously sheds new light on some long out-of- print material.” -- The Washington Post “This first career-spanning selection confirms Eady as a likable, if self- conscious, poet of uncommon variety, with a gift for the spoken vernacular.

Since his 1980 debut, Eady has evoked the dilemmas of poetic vocation and the harsher dilemmas of race and poverty: "No rules, except for/ What's always been:/ Do what you gotta do." His short, jagged lines take up the legacy of the Black Arts poets, though his sensibility is less violent, his humor quieter, his sense of his social position more ironic: one mid-career poem even bears the title "Why Do So Few Blacks Study Creative Writing?" By the 1990s Eady could set his sense of responsibility to African-American history against his joy in music and in his own art. His best book, You Don't Miss Your Water (1995), gathered clear, forceful prose poems that reacted to his father's death. Brutal Imagination (2001) adopted the voice of the nonexistent black kidnapper made up by the homicidal mother Susan Smith to explain her children's disappearance. New poems of marital love and domesticity, though not Eady's most original, come as needed leavening. This is a fine introduction to Eady's worthy oeuvre.” -- Publisher’s Weekly Online.