"Powell has a perfect ear . . . [His] great subject is passion, in all its stages and manifestations: passion sought, spent, relived in the mind, played out in language." –Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker
"With his typical wry eroticism, an eagle eye for the places where men converge, and a compass that points always to desire, poet D. A. Powell leads us on a tour through a
Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys, from gay bars to bathhouses and into the backwoods." –
Vanity Fair "Powell's fifth collection is a stunner . . . Memory, sensuality, and time all tangle with each other–altering each other as they go. Powell takes us beyond the 'salty declivites' of a Turkish bath into a wilderness of desire, a 'region of want.' There could be no sounder guide." –
The Boston Globe
