"O’Brien touches on the most pressing questions and dilemmas of being human in this time and place with welcome playfulness, for example, situating “tower” and “Guadalajara” as an off-rhyme, explicitly noting the juxtaposition within “the rhyme of laws and loss,” and doubling up negatives, as in “not here but not/ Not.” In so doing, O’Brien produces many bizarre and beautiful linguistic combinations that shed light on peculiarly American anxieties of the 21st century"

"If O'Brien's poems have a sameness of diction and rhythm that verges on monotonous and impersonal, it's the same sameness of heartbeat and breath, prayer and meditation.