"Christopher Middleton's rare genius for exact observation and metaphysical wit has given us for over half a century now poems of such brilliant craftsmanship and exacting sensibility that a few critics only have dared to assess their magic. He is an incomparable stylist, a wry ironist, a philosopher of words. The only category in which he fits justly is that of a poet." --Guy Davenport "Our language has not enjoyed the work of a poet so religious, without the consolations of convention, since the death of Wallace Stevens."--Graham Christian, Harvard Review