"A bold and elegant conversation with wisdom itself. . . . A complex guidebook to contemporary life. These poems explore life’s contradictions and mysteries while creating light from the dark spaces of death and doubt. . . . Triumphant."
The Journal "Dunn takes aim at everything, especially our search for meaning in a culture of posttruth and too much news, some of it skewed. He does so with humor, wit, and a dose of gravitas, grasping detail and nuance. . . A timely and necessary addition."
Library Journal (Starred) "Incisively capturing the oddities of logic and whimsies of reason, Pulitzer Prize-winner Dunn considers with grace, humor, and gravity the superstition and sophistry embedded in everyday life."
Publishers Weekly "Stephen Dunn has long known how to begin a poem so it sounds like part of a conversation, how to move the poem along by following its own curiosities, and how to deliver just enough wisdom at the end. He’s still doing it all right here, better than ever, in this fresh new collection."
Billy Collins "Occasionally one of our best poets gets even better. In Whereas, Stephen Dunn tells the truth about lying and (perhaps) tells lies about what constitutes truth. No one else uses abstraction as affectively or as wisely. No one else uses humor with such devastating charm. Dunn negotiates the labyrinthine simplicities that deepen our lives with deft maneuverings and always surprising clarity."
Michael Waters "There’s a deep and reliable honesty that drives these poems, a kind of courageous revelation not of old wounds and losses, but of something like the-way-things-are. That the poems manage this kind of transmission of (no other word for it) truth, and make that truth so much a delight to hear—well, that’s what Stephen Dunn has been doing all his writing life. That’s why his poems have been, and remain, indispensable."
Robert Wrigley