"By now most people know Robert Coles. Or for their own sake they ought to."—New York Times Book Review

"Today, nearly every American poet owes a debt to [William Carlos] Williams, but Coles saw something in him which all too many poets miss: the doctor, for whom treating his patients was a matter of sensitively responding to them—and who could move from treating them to writing about them with the same sensitivity. Coles himself became a psychiatrist; he learned how to listen to people, how to care for them. And now he gives their words back to us."—Soho Weekly News

"This book is all of a piece—and voice—with Robert Coles's life work. John Ciardi, the poet and translator, once surmised that 'finally, a man is defined by what he does with his human attention.' Robert Coles' poems provide remarkable examples of a life in definition and re-definition. Dr. Williams would be more than pleased. He would be impressed."—Pharos