This collection of poetry by award-winning poet Valerie Nieman is praised by National Book Award finalist Sarah Lindsay, who says, "Valerie Nieman writes poems with long tap roots, and poems with sharp beaks that strike swiftly. They cast off from the known, or fix the familiar with a clear gaze, and unmoor the reader either way. For a nameless hunger and restlessness, here are guide and supplies and hills to climb, all in one fine book." Fred Chappell, former Poet Laureate of North Carolina, offers the following: "Like the millwright in her poem, Valerie Nieman seems "with bare hands (to) embrace live steam." Wake Wake Wake is sinew and tendon, hard muscle and bruised bone; the volume sings with every inch of the body and every breath of the spirit. If she speaks of "hearing that we have all fallen short," she yet believes¿she knows¿"the way a path is best walked/not by looking down/but by looking out." Would you be stout of heart, steadfast of purpose? Read Valerie Nieman."