"The intelligence, sensitivity and humor of these poems are a gift to the reader. In the tradition of Langston Hughes, J.D. Scrimgeour writes with the pioneering spirit of a jazz musician. His work travels from Normal, Illinois to Greece to Salem, Massachusetts and takes place over one hundred years. The poems are precise and powerful, but it is the range that is extraordinary; there has never been a wider cast of characters in a book of poetry. We meet adolescent baseball players, a Greek grandmother, a father who is a poet, street people in Salem, two infant boys, and many more. Wasn't this Whitman's dream: to reveal the miraculous power of the ordinary man? J.D. Scrimgeour's America is composed of people we might walk past, unless, like this poet, we stop and listen to what they have to tell us." - Charlotte Gordon, author of Mistress BBradstreet: The Untold Life of America's First Poet