Susan Larson, New Orleans Times-Picayune :

"No matter what your hurricane experience, you will find it reflected here, told in the words of a writer who was moved to bear witness."

Ellen Steinbaum, The Boston Globe:

     "When Philip C. Kolin […] and Susan Swartwout […] coedited a collection of poems called Hurricane Blues, they received more than 10,000 entries to choose from. […]
     Some Hurricane Blues poems remind us of the disconnect of being where sun warmed our faces as we listened to news about the rising waters. […]
     Linda Pastan wrote of Noah preparing the ark […]
     Some poems tell how the story unfolded. […]
     The long, slow work of rebuilding goes on, and the mountain of written words continues to grow. I am finding that the more I write, the more I am beginning to find ways to start talking about what I saw. But for each writer who lives in New Orleans, who visits, who thinks about what it would be like to lose everything, the impulse to respond continues. We write to make other people pay attention. Mostly we write as a way to make sense out of the incomprehensible. We have no choice. It's what we do."

Mississippi Libraries

"This collection is amazing in its variety and styles."

"On the Shelf," University of Chicago Magazine:

"…this volume explores the physical and emotional destruction wreaked by 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Covering the moments before the storms broke to rescue and recovery, these poems act as eyewitness accounts."

Lynn Watson, Hattiesburg American:

    "The collection does remind us…that hurricanes and devastation are part of a cycle that must be dealt with.…The chapter titles are phases of the hurricane, akin to the stages of grief, leading us through some ugly situations but always in a beautiful way, a way that enables us to finish the final chapter, 'Resolutions,' and feel that we've reached one. […]
     Hurricane Blues is, no doubt, tragic in its subject matter, but as its editors intended, will 'remain…on the surface of memory, defining the terror and preserving the triumph of a nation.'"

Beth Ann Fennelly, The Southern Register:

     "One comes away from the experience of reading Hurricane Blues moved by the resiliency of the human spirit and its ability to create art out of chaos. Memorable images abound…"

Joe Bendel, J.B. Spins:

"Hurricane Blues reflects the general response to Katrina itself—heartbreaking with interludes of ugly recriminations. Most of the poems are moving reminders of the loss engendered by Katrina."