"Alison Stine writes, Believe me. I am telling you a story, and the story she tells us we believe as it unfolds. The poems are moving - beautiful, tragic, death-haunted, and uncanny - like old folk songs and murder ballads - lovely on the tongue, heavy on the heart. As a narrator, Stine does not and will not swerve when faced with the brutal, the adamantine and the ordinary damage that equals a life."
- Eric Pankey, 2008 Vassar Miller Prize Judge




“Alison Stine's poems are sanguine... Her work has energy and always a delicate, attractive sadness... This is intricate, strong, and very tough work... A very accomplished debut collection.” –Paul Zimmer, The Georgia Review