Marrying America

Wilk is a poet not only of the utmost competence but brilliance. Here is a poet able to give mature voice to the oldest and most enduring American theme: the immigrant as spiritual pilgrim. The clarity of the pilgrim voice is the admirable center of Wilk's book--as if a straight-speaking Brooklynite has been hot-wired to the mysteries at the heart of the American experience. It's a compelling voice, rising at times out of violence yet the tone it takes is often of lyric tenderness--a tenderness so rare in modern poetry it cause you to sit up straight. --Larry Woiwode Wilk maps new territory of the heart and the Heartland. That's why his poetry is such a marriage with America, when divorce is impossible. --Yevgeny Yevtushenko