Crawford is a wise, learned, and accomplished poet who has traveled widely, both to places throughout the world and to the shadowy reaches of the human heart. His poetic canvas is vast, dazzling with vivid imagery and textured with eclectic allusions, from Ken Lay to Cain; Zagajewski to Dante; Marianne Moore to Elizabeth Bishop; and Gertrude Stein to Tiberius. Moving seamlessly from the darkness of failed love and existential angst to the light of new love and the radiance of mere being, Crawford navigates the treacherous seas of a mystical world best described by his own, deftly chosen words: "Sour inextricable from sweet / inside the chambers of our grapefruit hearts."