Anyone who has walked the dry, dusty hills outside Alpine, at the foot of the Davis Mountains, will know a little of what Larry Thomas writes about, with mastery and skill, and deep understanding. Larry Thomas grew up in this hot, dry country, where survival was everything, and the terrors of nature were spiritual lessons. His poems, taut, taciturn, chiselled out of the silence he learned there, are achingly pure lyrics; and are fables in their own way. These poems celebrate a place I love, a hard place, but one of rare beauty and depth, and, in its own way, an altar of strange gods. Paul Christensen ""With an intensity and delight, Larry Thomas evokes two major concerns in his new volume: the drama of the land and the wonders of perception. And again, as we've seen in his finer work before, it's the immediacy of story that gives his work its gritty yet lyrical texture."" James Hoggard