“In Light of Stars presents a poetry that engages the larger questions of our place on earth, a poetry that lifts us beyond personal loss to moments cherished and made brilliant by close attention to and appreciation of the natural world. Bruce Willard’s lyric voice, craft, and imagination are authentic and inspired. When he asks, ‘How do you decide / to do anything one last time’ I am compelled to think of us all standing here, looking up for the time we have. . . .”

—Christopher Buckley

“Hovering inside of this book is the paradox of solitude: we yearn for it, we are pained by it. And when someone we love dies, these beautiful poems attest, nothing is ever perfectly quiet again. In Light of Stars is as earthward as it is skyward, and Bruce Willard’s imagination is at once corporeal and hauntingly spiritual. You can hear the living and the dead breathe in this book, which is to say: it gives me hope.”

—Katie Ford

“There’s a fine sensibility at work in these poems, irreverent and American. I admire their clear language, their fine wit and feeling for the male self coming to terms with the world. I like the way they float back and forth between tenderness and irony.”

—Joseph Millar