"His finest book to date–the most ambitious, the richest in writing and psychological drama, the most emotionally and intellectually demanding. It feels as though he has raised this book out of the darkest regions of his art and life"–Sherod Santos
"Magic City celebrates the splendors of imagination's birth in childhood. We're in a completely new poetic universe–the natal world of Bogaloosa, Louisiana with its voodoo and gullah songs, worries about the Klan, zigzag lightning bugs, Mardi Gras flambeaus, pigweed, and chain-gangs by the roadside. Komunyakaa gives to these, his firstnesses, savoring poetic homages that float like butterflies, sting like bees. What language, what pain, what beauty."–Garrett Hongo
