"Jane Hicks' poems are a "fierce serenade" paying homage to the world with compassionate observation and vivid, exact detail so achingly real we recognize our own in it, even as we are drawn to the particular people, places, and stories of Hicks' part of Appalachia: the Carter Family, an early twentieth century woman missionary, the enchantments of "deep hollows and steep fields," the devastation of illegal strip mining, the abiding influence of a grandmother whose "blood... flows strong" in the poet. These poems are beautifully, painstakingly crafted from the "heart-cache" of Hicks' life and words." -- Lisa Williams, author of Woman Reading to the Sea: Poems, the winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize