"Is anyone writing poems that are as memorable, masterful, and quirky as Ron Koertge's? If you want the lowdown on Lilith, and if you can bear to read about Lois Lane aging, and if you long to know the unsavory truth about Lazarus after he returned from the dead, this deliciously smart and entertaining collection of poems is the one you've been looking for!"

"Ron Koertge is an expert in the art of disorientation. His tongue-in-cheek poems are clever, of course, but they also dispense an unsettling, probably illegal mixture of Novocain and Kool-Aid. When you finish a poem by Koertge, you look around with the sensation that your living room furniture has been rearranged while you were away. This is his long-standing, one-person campaign for wakefulness in the human situation. The New & Selected Poems is a serious cocktail."

"Whimsey meet Oddness. Meet Oddness, Pathos. Hey, Pathos let me introduce you to Funniness. Don't make fun of her name, though, don't try to be funny--leave that to her. Fantastical! Say, I'd like you meet Whimsey, Oddness, Pathos and Funniness. (Yeah, shush, we've heard that joke--stick with the fantastical, O.K.?) Is that . . . ? Look, it's Ron Koertge, hanging out with Tenderness. Hey Koertge! C'mere, I want you to meet Whimsey, Oddness, Pathos and Fun . . . Oh, you know them already? Oh. You guys know Ron? For a long time? Oh. Yes. Right. I knew that."