"Gets closer to this marathon than an avenue railbird, and it leaves impressions not fleeting, but lasting."

--Sports Illustrated

The New York City Marathon is considered one of the nation's--and the world's--premier sporting events. A reporter for the New York Times, Liz Robbins brings the color, the history, the electricity of this remarkable annual competition alive in A Race Like No Other. Centering her narrative around the fabled 2007 running, Robbins captures all the intensity of the grand event, following the runners--both professional...

Liz Robbins's poems have what only the very best poems have: a sturdy toughness undergirding their tenderness. Though the body spins dervishly-almost blindly- for love and beauty, it must also accept the jolts of pain, of physical labor. As with the flowering pear trees in "On the Verge of Spring," we are ever " hopeful, / hopeless--with the] smell of sweat suggestive/ of work and of fear." There's a refreshing honesty in these poems as well as a tremendous amount of skill with a sensuous musical language. Each poem is a delight, something to savor. -Nance Van Winckel