Karen Kovacik's poems are strong, distinctive and thoroughly wonderful works. Her personal poems such as 'Watching My Father Pray' make use of autobiographical detail in a way that is never insular or hermetic. And her Richard Nixon persona poems are stunning, brae, and original. American poetry, and American writing in general, tends to be sadly ahistorical, and the way these poems take on one of history's most loved and hated figures, giving him voice and making him human, is truly impressive. Nixon and I is an amazing debut.—Jesse Lee Kercheval