Dear God, Dear Dr. Heartbreak

"All of a sudden I understand why I like Aliki Barnstone’s poems so much. They remind me of the one she has studied most–shall we call her her master–Emily Dickinson. Not in the forms, not, as such, in the music, and not in the references; but in that weird intimacy, that eerie closeness, that absolute confession of soul . . . . In Barnstone, too, the two worlds are intensely present, and the voice moves back and forth between them. She has the rare art of distance and closeness. It gives her her fine music, her wisdom, her form. She is a fine poet."—Gerald Stern

"For Aliki Barnstone, poetry seems a natural medium. The vision and cadences of these poems suggest a sensibility for which poetry is as inevitable as breathing or eating."—Robert Pinsky