Andrew Riutta is one of the finest tanka poets working in English today. A quintessentially American voice, he records the various hardships and hopes of a working class Midwestern life with honesty and dignity. From the outside, a stranger would see a trailer, cigarette butts, and beer cans, never guessing at the poetic genius residing within. A man with little must appreciate what is truly important, and that imbues Riutta's work with a deep humanity that people living in comfortable circumstances rarely encounter. --M. Kei, author of Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay