Kaufman proceeds with great care and craft through landscapes of predicament and quandary to arrive at hard won yes-saying. -Li-Young Lee

Kaufman accomplishes what few poets ever achieve -- a travel and poetry book combined which is as earthy and spiritual as anything the renowned anthropologist, Levi-Straus could have written. This isn't an Americanized poetical version of Conrad's Heart of Darkness., but the real thing. -Hal Sirowitz

Andrew Kaufman’s Cinnamon Bay Sonnets bear powerful witness to “the last loneliness” of the lost, the forsaken, the outcast, the humiliated, the downtrodden. Divided between the almost paradisiacal Virgin Islands and a New York City Central Booking cell, the poet offers his nightmare flashbacks/angelic visions. “Swimming in wonder,” deafened by “the screaming sirens of pure pain,” he evokes “the intifada of the heart.” “Yo! Professor,” his cellmates implore him, “We’re all sad. Tell us a poem.” Echoing the Psalmist’s “How can I sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”with brave urgency he responds : “I am here – and writing. Please listen.” -- L. S. Asekoff

Inside these pages are fleeting, impressionistic moments—hunger, want, violence, sex, exploitation yes, but also an incredibly ingratiating humanity. Both Sides of the Niger isa feast of truly exotic impressions which refuses to bludgeon you with their meaning. The urge to search for a human explanation to the dazzling experience of each moment compels the reader to plow on through image after image with the eagerness of a cross-cultural explorer. That Kaufman has held back judgment in his process long enough to let his experiences' meaning offer itself is a testament to his skills as an anthropologist and a poet. Rimbaud sold arms to Africa, it killed him. Kaufman has given his poetic heart to Western Africa, and he's brought back an incredible gift,to his readers, to be treasured. This is a volume of poetry I will read and read again.-George Wallace, Editor of Poetry Bay, Co-Editor of Great Weather for Media