Publishers Weekly:
“Rife with radiant conceits and brisk realism”
los angeles review of Books:
“promises the values Elizabeth Bishop exalted in poetry: accuracy, spontaneity, and mystery”
NEW zealand poetry society:
“cathartic, elegant and tough”
SOUTHERN HUMANITIES REVIEW:
“a fierce talent… Like Dickinson’s famous speaker, she hits a world at every plunge.”
THE CORTLAND REVIEW:
“miraculous…a balletic grace and precision”
HUFFINGTON POST:
“the emotional register is as powerful and lithe as a leaping dancer”
RHINO POETRY:
“A poet of startling figuration and generosity”
THE MISSOURI REVIEW:
“I loved these poems. Not just appreciated, admired, and were inspired by them, but loved.”
FOREWORD REVIEWS:
“A master of form, she places her words so fluidly, her images and ideas seemingly mainline into consciousness—instant realization.”
Washington Independent Review of Books:
“Honum was a ballet dancer and this is important to know, for dance depends upon music, and control – and so does poetry…Honum has technique in her bones.”
the rumpus:
“The consistent clarity and strength of Honum’s writing is striking and frankly, impressive.”
the common:
“With each new word, she steps us forward with the care we use to move into the dark night, when we cannot see the path ahead.”
CLAUDIA EMERSON:
“Honum in every case transfigures emotion by way of elegant language and formal restraint. Chloe Honum is ‘one astounding flame’ of a poet, and I predict a long-lasting one.”
Tracy K. SmitH:
“I am so very taken by the exquisite power and grace in every single one of these poems, so arresting in their honesty and in their unflinching ability to scour the world for image after indelible image.”
CHEN CHEN:
“Hers is a poetry so alive and compassionate that it can hurt to read—like stepping out after too much time in a stuffy room and having to adjust one’s eyes to the light.”
LISA RUSS SPAAR:
“astonishingly attentive empathy……these beautiful, brave poems insist on a place for language in a broken world.”
SHANE McCRAE:
“These poems foreground lyricism in such a way as to make meaning seem a natural outgrowth of music—they are, as a consequence, some of the most purely lyric poems I’ve read in years.”
RICHIE HOFMANN:
“From the beginning I have loved and sought out Chloe Honum’s poems, craving their spareness and intensity.”
VICTORIA CHANG:
“Honum’s poems and voice are steely, unforgettable, and full of treasures. And her gifts are immensely palpable.”
ALLISON BENIS WHITE:
“an extraordinary mind pressing through language to speak so deeply, so startlingly, the reader is made larger to receive its enormous gift.”
CHRISTIAN WIMAN:
“stark and haunting and hard to put down”