“Paul Zarzyski is the closest thing to beat poet-novelist Jack Kerouac on the cowboy poetry circuit, with his stream of consciousness, fluid lines that never struggle, or even try, to rhyme or achieve iambic pentameter.” (Tom Leyde, The Salinas Californian)

“Paul Zarzyski’s poems will break your heart—and then turn right around and mend it. He looks pain squarely in the eye, takes its measure, and counters it with tenderness and wisdom, all in language that should be set to music. Books like this are the reason poetry exists.” (Ed McClanahan, Author of The Natural Man)

“So it seems likely that Zarzyski sees the world from atop a bucking horse, or from the cab of a pickup truck heading for Billings or Santa Fe, or from a rodeo arena, or from his knees as he storms heaven for a favor. His is a remarkable gift. When I hear him read I think he is the best poet I have ever heard, but then I think what difference does it make...it is the moment and the poem in hand and the reading thereof that matters, and I sit, sobs rising in my throat, my mind expanding to absorb what this bard meters out, and I am made new again.” (Joan Hoffman, Clearwater Record-Ewing News, Clearwater, NE)

“Paul Zarzyski has an instantly recognizable voice, one that, once heard, you’ll never forget—and that voice is present on every page of this book. As the title implies, this book is about rodeo; but that’s like saying Cibo Matto’s music is about food; or, as someone said, that the movie “Chinatown,” is about water. Paul’s poems are about rodeo, and also about love, loss and affirmation—the stuff that poetry is, and always has been made of.” (Kirk Robertson, Lahontan Valley News/Fallon Eagle Standard)

“Zarzyski’s poems cover terrains as near as the woodstove and as far away as Nazi-occupied Poland and the human steppes of modern South Africa, with no trouble feeling at either extreme.” (Trudy Wischemann, South Valley Arts)