“What I like best about Sandra Alcosser's poetry is that it always draws me back, in its beauty and mystery, for the pleasure of rereading and rereading it. The stitching that binds the elements within each of her poems is sure and subtle, as invisible and perfect as the stitching that creates a forest or the threads that link the stars. The poems in Except by Nature are full of the riches and the risks, the words and the contemplations of the earth, and the place of the human within those realms.” —Pattiann Rogers

“Except by Nature is an exceptional collection: feisty, accomplished, and mature, its poems brim with serious delights.” —Eamon Grennan

“Sandra Alcosser's superbly sure-voiced poems possess intelligence and passion in equal measure, and they explore, question, surprise, and inform in utterly distinctive ways. Here is a poet who knows the fine-grained textures of thought, the precise distinctions of feeling, and the lush wisdom of language itself. Specific and grounded in the things of the world, yet winged with imaginative mind, Except by Nature is an extraordinary work.” —Jane Hirshfield