"In each of the twenty-two poems in Sinners in the Hands, Ann 
Killough inhabits and explores an iconic work of American 
literature, from Walden and 'The Gettysburg Address' to The 
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Gone with the Wind . . . her 
poems vibrate between the world of the text and the world of the 
flesh, at once both abstract and concrete. They are insightful 
and deft, they play with our notion of scale and expand us, all 
in language that is both clear and mysterious. Killough leaves 
us with an understanding of our passions, our national character,
and ourselves."—Beth Ann Fennelly, Series Judge

"The voice of these poems is intimate, probing, perplexed, 
witty, and delightfully intelligent. If not unequivocally admirable,
Killough's literary forebears are, however, always her comrades,
and through them she gains some purchase on the bloody
contradictions in American life, especially when it comes to
matters of race. At the heart of her poems . . . is Killough's
richly textured lament urging us not to forget the tragic
complexity of all we have inherited. The wondrous affirmation
of this book is that in probing our contradictions Killough also
reminds us of the richness of human possibility in the unfinished
American democratic experiment."—Fred Marchant

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ANN KILLOUGH is a teacher and writer, a North Carolinian 
transplanted to Boston. Her poems and reviews have been 
published in Fence, The Diagram, Poetry Ireland, The Shop,
Poems & Plays, Poet Lore, Plainsongs, and elsewhere.