TONY BARNSTONE is the youngest poet in the Barnstone dynasty. He is the Albert Upton Professor of English at Whittier College and the author of thirteen books, including Sad Jazz: Sonnets, published with Sheep Meadow, a much acclaimed first volume, Impure, translations of Wang Wei, and textbooks on Asian, African, Latin American and Near Eastern Literature.


“Tony Barnstone has no walls. He is alive moment to moment at the naked center. In his shrewd double vision, the animal self and the outside self mingle in ecstasy and grief of flesh. He is so surprising and fearless and cuts right to it, and yet so delicate and lyrical.”—Ruth Stone

“Plain-spoken and magical, this poet knows how to make imagination and the real world collide softly. Borders are crossed in the psyche and the flesh, and this collection seems like an elongated song that embraces the most elusive moments buried in language and nuance through the pure naming of things—a mantra of what is and what is dreamt—that takes into the sacred territory what no ordinary compass can plot or unplot.”—Yusef Komunyakaa