“I admire Julia Kasdorf's poems for their alert eye, attentive mind, vigilant heart, all fused into a single, sometimes painfully aware, vision of the world.  Bristling with narrative surfaces, angular emotional interiors, humorous sympathies, her poems move in careful zigzags, like a bat.  Her politically astute voice knows, understands, and without sentimentality embraces a universe of ordinary lives and unsung places—celebrating women's work, or her daughter's rapt in-taking of all that is new to her, or the nature of  ‘Poetry in America,’ or the existential texture of Mennonite life, or simply ‘sun flashing on a spider’s thread, a blade of grass, / my own tanned skin.’ Plainspoken, both intimate and discreet, these poems take hold.”
—Eamon Grennan
 

“Poetry in America updates our aesthetic for a new millennium. Bursting with sagging night diapers, tattooed students with HIV, cardio kick boxing, instructions on how to open a clove of garlic, bleak poetry readings in megastores that somehow transcend their settings, and legions of everyday female heroes, Kasdorf shows us how our poetry has opened its doors over the past few decades to admit the visions and voices of all kinds of Americans and their poetic testimonies.  This collection is inspiring and fearless.”
—Kate Daniels

“Those who have the courage to delve into ‘Poetry in America’ will be richly rewarded by its beauty, depth and emotional resonance. The collection may be rooted in loss, but its poems offer readers the warmth and honesty of an intimate encounter.”
—Voices of Central Pennsylvania