Measured by Stone

"What I like about Sam Hamill's poetry is its not being in the least laidback and cool. In it, tears, laughter, anger, and sorrow contend, all set forth with passionate candor. Hamill's deep intimacy with classical literature of the West and the Orient gives many of his poems a graceful concision—as in the second part of his book, 'Lessons from Thieves.' 'My poetry will very likely die with me,' the poet declares; but that isn't going to happen if Ezra Pound was right and 'In poetry, only emotion endures.'"

—X. J. Kennedy

"Throughout Sam Hamill's large body of work, there are poems that reach the sublime. They are powerful, combining an exquisite sensibility with directness of speech. Some of his lines are at the heart of poetry, and to read them is pure joy: 'Sustained by a few metaphors— / the tale, the telling, / the mind's music, the heart's vision.'"

—Grace Schulman

"Written from the point of view of a cranky, wandering poet of the old kind—part sage, part soul of the Buddha, and part rascal—these poems delight, surprise, and teach important lessons of love, compassion, generosity of spirit, and ultimate patience, which the great teacher called 'the supreme austerity.' Because of this, and because Sam Hamill is one of the essential poetic and political voices of our time, these are necessary, no, essential poems that you will go back to again and again."

—Bruce Weigl