"Lyric meets riff and echo, meets punchlines, meets science and pseudoscience, meets centipede as spirit animal, meets death and Death, meets us more than halfway and carries us to an undisclosed location. Wash Your Bowl is places going somewhere." —Michael Sikkema

CarlaJean Valluzzi describes the poems in Wash Your Bowl as "portraits on grains of rice" which "allow us to find our own space within them as well as our own path into what follows." And John Wentworth Chapin says, "This collection ignites sorrow and intellect and joy.... These poems dig in and make me itch."

A tiny coterie of people on the internet have reviewed the book. This review was written by a person that I have never even met, which is pretty neat. And this one was written by someone who knows me but still had some nice things to say. Also, the Baltimore City Paper named Wash Your Bowl one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of 2014.

For those keeping track at home, the book's title alludes to a Zen story from The Gateless Gate:

A new monk said to Master Zhaozhou, "I have just joined the community. I request instruction."

Zhaozhou asked, "Have you eaten your rice?"

"Yes," the monk replied, "I have eaten."

Zhaozhou said, "Then wash your bowl."

The new monk had an insight.