Regular Haunts

“There’s that delightful surface, sparkling with wit, with satire, with wordplay, and then there’s always that something else, that mystery maybe a fathom beneath the sun on the waves.”—from the introduction by Ted Kooser
 

“Costanzo is a grief-ridden observer of the kulchur. He reminds us of what we had, what we lost, perhaps what we never knew— and he does it in a mature, wise, lovely cadence. He is smart yet humble, full of pity for all of us, full of amazement. ‘When I first heard about America,’ he says, ‘it was already too late.’ He is one of our prophets.”—Gerald Stern
 

“This is truly poetry in the American grain. Costanzo looks unflinchingly at our totems, artifacts, and folkways and sets them down just as they are, with a deadly but affectionate irony.”—Carolyn Kizer
 

“Costanzo’s wit and satire and vision of the grotesque world of America get to the center of much of the madness of our culture.”—Peter Balakian