The Willow Grove

"It’s daring of Laurie Sheck to have made the myths surrounding Io so crucial to the central tenor of her poems, but the themes of exile, distance, and freedom from the falsehoods of secular appearance weave the title into her images, along with her own dedicated attention and moral passion." — W. S. Merwin

"Io at Night is a rare achievement: A delicate, truly poetic sensibility has internalized and transmuted powerful myth, making memorable verse. Central to the collection is the classical myth of Io, with its resonant themes of exile, loss, and the longing for return, that provides explicit text for five poems and subtext for the rest of the collection. Io herself becomes both a living presence and metaphor for a fullness, whether of knowledge or being, only rarely achieved."

— Robert E. Hosmer Jr., America

"Sheck’s subjects are unabashedly big and not the least bit quaint. In her best poems the personal and mythic conspire to create an altogether memorable human story." — Henri Cole, Poetry