" . . . as exciting a first book as I have seen in years, and I feel privileged to have had a hand in presenting it to the world of letters. However complex and rich his dazzling collection may be thematically, its canny presentation of struggle and redemption will touch the least specialistic reader's nerve . . . In a time of much inconsequential verse, a book of such singularity and originality, not to mention quality . . . is exciting and welcome. American Crawl is a work by which we can all set our moral and emotional—and yes, our intellectual compasses."—Sydney Lea
"It is absolutely no exaggeration to say that no one is writing like Paul Allen. There is not an ounce of flab in his poems, which are informed by an urgency, a sense of personal commitment, and a passion rarely seen in contemporary poetry. America in the 1990s is not a comfortable world in which to live; and Paul Allen is certainly not the man to entertain us with fanciful invitations to dens of innocence. Though American Crawl is a first book, there is nothing jejune about the poems, or about the unique imagination that creates them. The publication of this book is an important contribution to American letters."—Richard Tillinghast