Heaven & Earth Holding Company

"Heaven & Earth Holding Company contains a plentitude of delights. Like little stories told in the night, these poems are clear narratives crossed by mysterious shadows. And Hodgen's tone occupies a singular place at the intersection of funky wit and true feeling."---Billy Collins

"It is amazing how quickly John Hodgen's poems can somersault from hilarity to broken hope, from mousetraps to mantraps to everything we have yearned for filled to the eyeballs with the peril of mortal love. And he does it while tiptoeing along the very edge of a kind of open-handed formality not seen in our poetry for a long time, a formality always threatening to break, and sometimes indeed breaking, beautifully, under the weight of feeling on the one hand and truth on the other. This is a remarkable book."---Christopher Howell

"These are wise, wisecracking poems that rue and mock our human failings, but always preserve and honor our humanness. I am grateful for the deeply spiritual and all-embracing expanse of these poems that cherish the beautiful mess of our lives with humor and compassion. Here is an art that knows how we stumble, `one endless mistake after another,' into `the heart's true song."---Robert Cording