"Until the forms of life are clearly felt, the forms of art will mean little .... Here are the proportions that ease the heart, the images agleam with use, the spoken phrases of a fluency so natural that we forget how we distrusted it back home, where to grope for words proved our utter sincerity.... Agoos makes her connections, and uses those foreign ways, as directly or obliquely as she pleases." - James Merrill

"Agoos's speakers are sometimes capable of startling penetration; they are often inarticulate: both states become in the hands of this remarkable poet a species of eloquence." - Linda Gregson