Reviews of Something Black in the Green Part of Your Eye
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"Song of the Black Corona," "Choral Lines from the Sumerian," the title poem, "The Wooden Trap"—these poems say that the world is on fire but only the steadiest and most masterful hand can show us the burning. Kevin Cantwell's steady and masterful poems blend poise and intimacy in a style that is his own and built for the ages."

–Frank Bidart

"It is rare to find, in a first book of poetry, such a heady store of lyric precision and so much exquisite evidence of a world so keenly fathomed and observed."

—Jacqueline Osherow

“So focused, so distilled the articulation of these poems—the details of country matters so strangely noticed, the dreams so strongly nourished—that initially we are at a loss (though quite happy to be there) to know what to make of this new diction:

. . . dwindled beneath the blush
peignoirs of popular prose—

But it is the persistent authority of a discovered style which finds our confirmations, our security, 'that old fine music, which moved the story along.' Though spoken out of a solitude and into one, Cantwell’s fresh-cut verses achieve a sort of community of perception, 'untethered from familiar darkness,' as the poet says. This new poet says it all. Anew.”

–Richard Howard