Tom Murphy casts a broad net in this collection and trains a sharp eye on his catch, as varied as it is bountiful. Calling to mind the struggles of Tobias Wolff and A. J. Dubus III, Murphy carefully examines his harrowing boyhood, the corrosive effects of drug culture, urban blight and political dysfunction, the saving grace of mentors, his later roles as poet, scholar, teacher, traveler, husband and father, his wry encounters with Eugene Ruggles and Charles Bukowski. Use of form and tone varies too, from haunting elegies, luxuriant prose poems and stream-of-consciousness meditations to sonnets, muscular villanelles and blistering social criticism: “You want to bring your guns to my class?/….When the OK Corral breaks out, I’ll be yelling, ‘Kiss my ASS!'” His poems rise above confession and protest, though, to touch resounding chords of love and loss, despair and redemption. In his full-throttle search for the sacred, Tom Murphy ultimately maps the genome of the human heart, leaving readers the richer for his quest.
-Carol Coffee Reposa 2018 Texas Poet Laureate