In our mythological odyssey, in search of a deeper look at our soul, we at times enter the forest at its darkest point (to borrow from Joseph Campbell). W.K. Stratton wades in and encounters the beasts perched up in the family tree, shoots his poetic arrows up, and hits blood and bone. A fine and moving collection. --Tom Russell, songwriter/painter/essayist Santa Fe and Switzerland The lines are thin here--where the ache of one man ends, and the other begins. Kip Stratton's words walk that line. We feel him teeter.

We feel him give up, then somehow, in the most unlikely places of scorpion and snooker, discover his redemption. You could call this memoir, but it is too poetic. This is oil-rig deep. This is history and childhood and the desert scuff we walk through every day. This is the sad song we need to hear at 3 am, when no one but the radio is up with us. This is the companion you will carry with you in the back seat of your truck even years later, torn and yellowed, but still singing true. --karla k morton, 2010 Texas State Poet Laureate.