"One of the wonderful things about Jimmy & Rita is that Kim Addonizio never imposes herself in any way, so the poems sing themselves into us. We experience the victories and defeats of Jimmy and Rita as they struggle through the boundless claustrophobia of their world. I think of them and there is a sense of sadness within me. Yet I think of what Addonizio has accomplished and I feel joy."--Hubert Selby, Jr

 

" Kim Addonizio's work is distinguished by two of the rarest qualities in American poetry: a sense of dramatic life on the page and a sense of class consciousness. Both are evident in Jimmy & Rita, a book that streams with the fragmented unity, pace and visceral immediacy of a film:--Stuart Dybeck