Rider

"An elegant, elegiac poem that recovers his relationship with his rabbi stepfather . . . a formal tour de force in which grief, memory and passion are dramatically played out."—Publishers Weekly

"With this lively, sometimes funny, sometimes very moving book, Rudman confirms his reputation as one of the most interesting young poets now at work. He can take intractably squalid details and bully them until they yield an undeniable magic."—New England Review

"An elegant, elegiac poem that recovers his relationship with his rabbi stepfather . . . a formal tour de force in which grief, memory and passion are dramatically played out."—Publishers Weekly

"A dynamic, passionate, many-textured dialogue between a writer and his ghosts, obsessive, caustic, grieving, and witty . . . the fierce dialogue between the writer and his voices propels the poem forward with psychic complexity and emotional continuity."—Harvard Review

"A new departure in autobiographically confessional poetry . . . Relationships and characterizations are unfolded with brilliant boldness. It is striking the way this work evolves into a moving elegy for the stepfather, a rabbi manqué, in this brave, very American work."—M. L. Rosenthal