<DIV><p>"Wilkins' poems are savage and beautiful, full of hard-won lives and a godawful tenderness. In this book Manifest Destiny is more than political rhetoric?it's a call to find the limits of survival. It has dust-stunned men, hardscrabble women, and a patient devil, sharpening his teeth."?Traci Brimhall</p><p>"For Wilkins, the American West is no theme park or romantic diorama. He offers an earnest glimpse into past and present landscapes that are real and imagined, mourned and celebrated and witnessed?for these are human landscapes."?Michael McGriff</p><p><B>Joe Wilkins</B> is the author of <I>The Mountain and the Fathers</I> and <I>Killing the Murnion Dogs</I>.</p></div>