When I read Kerry Shawn Keys' work, I note immediately how much I enjoy his phrasings, the unpredictable turns and twists of a line where each new word comes as surprise, and yet all are deeply satisfying when one re-reads them: "I knew Kathy Leonard in the night-soiled, chiselled guilt" or "tonight, you will drown in the unattended glossary of your dreams" or "ragged seams of coal share the flute-like warble / of a high-C in her voice" or "If all mornings could be like this whispered shower / of sunlight and rain" -- this gorgeous language that wants to stay in the mouth, one wants to toss the line this way and that, in memory. That alone would be more than enough, but Kerry Shawn Keys is also a master of a set-up, of a scene, and his poems, such as "Tennessee Williams Comes to Mulberry Street" can do within just a few stanzas what other writers take hundreds of pages to invent and develop. Then -- yes, there is more! -- there are absolutely hilarious, yet, true to life, in all of its manifestations, pieces such as "Experience" or "Dog" or "Springtime at the Edge of Paradise". But, by the end, what I found myself marvelling most at was his extended epistle, "From Celsus A Few Words", and his poignant, playful, and beautiful prayer, "Octopus." Both poems are brilliant gems in their genres, and any reader who opens the book on those pages will want to buy it and share the work with others. It is that good." -- Ilya Kaminsky