Joseph Kidneys Devotional Forensics announces a poet of delicate intellect generous spirit of vulnerability and a persuasive authority Kidney seems to me a philosopherpoet doubling as sentry guarding the ruin from repair Rather than fixing things why not allow them to become what they will and call that allowance a form of generosity of understanding For no matterhow narrow the mesh of the net things crumble freehaving earned the privilege of breaking which might be a good thing says Kidney dont some kinds of painperfect themselves into sweetness These poems contain plenty of sweetness but theres no naivete here the camaraderie of friends the dark and bright particulars of the natural world none of these erase lifes other more banal troubling truths for instance the 24hour Walmart whose stale bossa novacuts routinely to commercials for missing children The books allinclusiveness reflects Kidneys largeheartedness made all the larger by his honesty I should promise to be kinder he says at one point as if intention might have to be enough One of the many gifts of Devotional Forensics is its affirmation that in our brokenness we are human we are flawed and we can be humane
– Carl Phillips Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Then the War And Selected Poems 20072020