“ Further than the Blood contains only the briefest excerpts from Cold Mine, Shownman, Travelling Mercies . Perhaps Birchard will be persuaded to put those series back together… His vivid, offbeat, casually learned and masterly language is refreshingly modest, individual—unfashionable. I’m not sure there’s a poet with a better ear, and I’m also unsure if another has a feeling for how intelligence moves within and between lines that is any way superior.” — David Miller This volume brings together the complete sequences, 'Cold Mine', 'Shownman', 'Travelling Mercies', together with 'Grandmother’s Middle Name Was America'.