Cold Blue Steel

"While Sarah Cortez's Cold Blue Steel gives a fascinating insider's view of police work rarely seen in poetry, it should not obscure the fact that she is simply a wonderful, talented poet. Period. These direct, hard-hitting poems sometimes had me laughing out loud, but I needed to sock away those laughs to balance the other poems that broke my heart. Cortez takes a poet's eye into the workplace and, like any  good poet, uncovers what's really going on beneath the surface. These poems sing packed, tight songs--everything earned, nothing extra." —Jim Daniels, author of Show and Tell: New and Selected Poems, and other books 

"With its rough exterior and focused narrative theme, Cold Blue Steel documents the desperate struggle of a woman negotiating a continual series of dehumanizing experiences, a woman hoping to emerge unscathed from that fire and darkness." —Louisiana Literature

"In a culture addicted to cop dramas—on TV, in movies, in the pages of police procedurals—Cortez offers an inside look that both honors and demystifies women and men in uniform." —Houston Chronicle

"Cortez's work in Cold Blue Steel is both brutally frank and lyrically, rhythmically beautiful." —Houston Chronicle

"With its rough exterior and focused narrative theme, Cold Blue Steel documents the desperate struggle of a woman negotiating a continual series of dehumanizing experiences, a woman hoping to emerge unscathed from that fire and darkness." —Greg Flakus