Sympathetic Magic

"Dangerous thing to say, and may it be a blessing not a curse, but the last first book I remember as having this strangeness and distinction was called Harmonium."

— Howard Nemerov, Former Poet Laureate recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the Bollingen Prize, and the National Book Award for Poetry

"You swam into my Keatsean or Galilean ken with all the wonder and astonishment and delight of a new planet of major magnitude."

— Anthony Hecht

"On rare, moonlit occasions, the work of a truly gifted poet comes to our attention: work we'd like to make our own, poems we'd love to steal. The poems in Michael Blumenthal's first book, Sympathetic Magic, are that good… I can think of no other young poet who seems so utterly suited to guide us as the darkness rolls in and the unnerving silence gathers."

— Charles Fishman

"I was about to stop writing criticism because most of the books coming my way were so vapid, and I was growing tired of hammering on the heads of weak, and often renowned, poets. Now, along comes Blumenthal, and once again I rejoice that there are some talents of size out there worth shouting about. I gather this is his first book. May there be many more."

— Robert Peters, The Great American Poetry Bake-Off

"Howard Nemerov has said of this book, 'Dangerous thing to say, and may it be a blessing not a curse, but the last first book I remember as having this strangeness and distinction was called Harmonium.'… Putting Blumenthal's work on a level with Stevens' is not a rhetorical exaggeration… Blumenthal draws upon his journalistic craft to create a poetry that has the clear, immediate impact of a well-written article while sacrificing nothing in the way of metaphoric depth or musicality of phrasing."

— Brown Miller, San Francisco Review of Books