“Mr. Murphy is a very careful craftsman in his work, a patient and testing intelligence, one of those writers who knows precisely what he wants his style to achieve. His poetry is quiet but packed, carefully wrought, not surrealistically wild, and its range not limited but deliberately narrow. It takes aim.”
—Derek Walcott
“Among my favorite poems in Rich Murphy’s The Apple in the Monkey Tree, ‘Monk See Monk Do,’ ‘Forceps Two Step,’ ‘Table Manner,’ ‘Weather or Knots,’ ‘Science 1492,’ ‘The Nature of Things Now,’ ‘Genesis.’ I could go on listing. The apple and the monkey are carried throughout the collection but are presented in a fresh way each time they appear. The satire—the exposure of the reality of human existence and human nature, very Swift-like, yet different in execution—less gritty than Swift’s poetry. Nicely done.”
—Samantha Gloss, Freelance Editor
“If ‘we distract the angels from the soft / behind of our biology for the rough / terrain of history,’ we connect human beings to the fuller spirit of the mountain and ocean. After all, the earth is prior to mankind. We exist for it. Nature doesn’t exist only for human use. These poems ask questions about human relevance. If a poet can answer, in part, the question, What are the reasons for history?—then his book is worthy of our attention.”
—Sean Farragher, Poetry Editor, FRiGG Magazine
