"Regional poetry at its best, where the strongly articulated local
        voice slips easily, persuasively, and movingly into the universal."
        -- J. R. Willingham, Choice
      "Uses the history and prehistory of the Sangamon river valley as
        his subject matter; the poems are laconic, earthy, full of sharply observed
        details, and are rendered with a flair for common speech." -- Library
        Journal
      "Knoepfle has long been misunderstood and underestimated among U.S.
        poets. . . . poems from the sangamon, his finest single collection
        to date, celebrates the Sangamon country around Springfield." --
        Charles Guenther, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
      "Captures without nostalgia a time and a people in their essences,
        embodying their raw emotions, their dreams, and the bitter realities of
        being caught up in the twentieth century." -- Anne C. Bromley, Prairie
        Schooner