In 2001, Ivan R. Dee began publication of the annual New Criterion Poetry Prize-winner. For 2004 the prize has been awarded to Deborah Warren. Ms. Warren's poems combine imagination with intelligence, music with emotional energy. The language sparkles in poem after poem. Dana Gioia. Warren is among the very finest American poets who still observe the strictures of meter and rhyme. She informs her work with lively feeling, wit, wisdom, and memorable music; she keeps us sitting up and interested. X. J. Kennedy.
Without complaining or even much sentiment, the poems in this collection point out the subtle challenges that we create in our own lives by habit, culture and even choice. I am so ignorant to the stories of the Greek Gods that a good deal of the references went over my head. I found meaning in the collection in spite of my ignorance.