Praise for We Draw Breath from the Same Sky and Grace Notes:

“Mary Anna Kruch’s first poetry collection, We Draw Breath from the Same Sky, is a paean to her family and a pleasure to read. The journey from Michigan to her father’s boyhood home near Rome, Italy, is one the reader will want to take many times. The poet’s vivid depictions of gatherings at her family’s ancestral farmland in Pofi, Italy, are cinematic. The names of the poet’s parenti and the Italian language sprinkled throughout heighten the book’s musicality. The aromas of sautéed garlic, basil, freshly picked tomatoes simmering in the day’s sauce and warm homemade bread waft from the pages. Kruch’s prose poems explore the early days of her parents’ courtship, her father Gidio’s letters home from the Yukon to his parents in Detroit talking about the blue-eyed Betty, the beautiful WAC he’d fallen for and later the couple’s goal of saving two hundred bucks for a used roadster with which to explore the national parks. The book touches on the relationship between the poet and her husband and traditions that date back generations. “For My Grandfather, Giacinto,” imagines the late patriarch and his brother, Vincenzo, working the fields under the same hot Italian sun that was warming the poet’s face on a recent visit. In another poem, “Early Morning in Amatrice,” Kruch recalls the deadly 2016 earthquake in a hilltop village in Lazio. After joining the search for survivors, Maria, whose house was destroyed, holds a child and points at the sky where they see “an acclamation of larks” ascend from the debris. This lyrical and fresh language spins beauty from despair. In this deceptively slender volume, Kruch creates a satisfyingly thorough examination of a family’s life, shaped by migration, language, wars, courtships, marriages, births and deaths but, most of all, deep, enduring love.”

- Sonya Vann DeLoach, whose writing appears in Chicken Soup for the Soul: I’m Speaking Now: Black Women Share Their Truth in 101 Stories of Love, Courage and Hope(2021) and Cypher (2021), has written for The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Detroit Free Press, where she was a copy editor.

“[In Grace Notes] Mary Anna Scenga Kruch creates a hybrid coming-of-age memoir that gives her readers indelible glimpses and insights into a life truly lived.  With popular songs as scaffolding, she ties the stages of her life to the history of her day, most notably the growth of suburbs and the Vietnam war. While she pulls no punches in recounting trauma and the forces that can pull families apart, her carefully rendered memories and graceful meditations—suffused with the strength of a loving marriage and immersed in the natural world—let us know that “What Lingers” is ultimately “Benevolence.”

- Terry Bohnhorst Blackhawk, author of One Less River (Mayapple Press), a Kirkus Reviews Best 2019 Poetry Title; Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize among other awards

“In her hybrid memoir Grace Notes, Mary Anna Scenga Kruch, does the good work of memorializing not only her own personal history as a child of Italian heritage living in Detroit but also of History writ large. Set against the backdrop of the 60’s and Vietnam War, complete with a soundtrack of popular songs capturing all those collective moments, we see how a single life is shaped by love and family, by trauma, by the love of a good man, and finds strength from that life-long experience and shares this through poems and prose full of rich and resonant detail lovingly etched.”

- Dennis Hinrichsen, Author, schema geometrica (most recent) and Skin Music, 2014 Michael Waters Poetry Prize (S. Indiana Review Press)

“Mary Anna's memoir holds vivid insights into a woman's love, marriage, and life shared with a Vietnam Veteran…In FIRE AND RAIN, the prose is edgy and angry with a president and his hate-filled faction…TEARS IN HEAVEN and writings all through Grace Notes are tender reflections on an estranged older sister who suffered with bi-polar disorder. Holding this entire work together are family poems with stunning pastoral images like watercolor paintings.”

- Terry Wooten, author of Stone Circle Poems (winner of the Michigan Notable Book Award) and host poet, The Stone Circle, a talismanic landmark for poets, musicians and storytellers.