Jesse Waters takes on that old charge of the poet: to delight and to teach at the same time, and he does it with a funky, sensual quality to the diction throughout this spirited and deeply moving collection of poems, and with a lush and quirky imagery that has been finely tuned by a heartfelt but wildly imaginative regard for our ironic times. This is also a book about love, but the poet here does not inhabit the offices that love typically inhabits; instead, he manages to embrace a more Whitmanesque expression of love that transcends gender. In that light I admire too the poet’s willingness and acomplished artistic ability to let down his manliness in order to embrace a more inclusive emotional landscape than we commonly see in the poetry of American men. This is a strong book made with genuine care and it represents an important new voice in American poetry.

     —Bruce Weigl, Declension in the Village of Chung Luong