What strikes me most about the poems in Trying to Be a Person is how they've found their place in the family of American poetry. Descendants of Dickinson and Whitman-the grandparents of modern poetry-his poems pay homage to family members as diverse, and yet as similar, as Allen Ginsberg and Marshall Mathers.

In one poem, I hear the echo of William Carlos Williams, but instead of so much depending upon a red wheelbarrow, it's a red dress and red sweater falling over a girl's hips.

McMasters says, maybe I'll learn something, and he does in every poem, using whatever's around him, taking his readers along. Even though he claims, I don't look for the divine, he finds it, feet firmly planted in everyday experiences, holding planets in my back pocket.

- Antonio Vallone, Poetry Editor at Pennsylvania English & Publisher at MAMOTH books