long poems and sequences of poems, Fulton's verse has the tight constructedness and multiple layered qualities of Dickinson's poetry ... Fulton shares Dickinson's outrageous sense of play with both cultural icons and aspects of English normally taken for granted." Miller also has pointed to Fulton's kinship with Dickinson in the use of end-of-line syntactic doubling, and was the first critic to note similarities in punctuation. Where Dickinson makes the dash key to the rhythms and expression of her poetry, Fulton introduces a new sign of punctuation that she calls 'a bride / after the recessive threads in lace' [= =]. This double-equal sign, which 'might mean immersion,' is 'the unconsidered // mortar' between bricks; it makes 'visible the acoustic signals / of things about to flame,' 'hinging one phrase to the next,' throwing the reader into the same kind of adventurous uncertainty as Dickinson's dash. Miller goes on to say, "For both poets, this interest in hinges, in connections, in incongruities and contiguities reveals itself in verbal and syntactical structures as well as in themes. In short, while these are poets of big ideas, they also are very much poets of language ... Like Dickinson, Fulton makes us see the pomposity, ridiculousness, and fragility of our beliefs, hopes, and attitudes as well as the sometimes terrible wonder of human interaction and the universe beyond ourselves." In addition to Dickinson's influence, Mark Jarman and Cristanne Miller have noted the influence of Marianne Moore. Rita Dove has written that "Nabokov is one of Alice Fulton's literary mentors: The sheer delight in language's subterfuges, the knotty avenues of recollections and desire, the human need for 'significance' that forms narratives even where there are none — these themes are the very bone and gristle of Fulton's prodigal, energetic poetry." Quotes "Anguish is the universal language." "The truly new looks truly wrong at first." "Emotion is the best mnemonic device." "A perfect skepticism questions disbelief." "Poetry is neither future driven nor teleological in spirit. The pleasure exists in the presence and texture of each line, as each line is experienced. Which is to say: fiction is about what happens next; poetry is about what happens now." "The unseemly has been the enemy of women's progress." "Simplicity is prized as a symptom of sincerity." "I used the hand's most important attribute, opposition, to hold the pen." "The wish to survive turns poets into poeticians, mincing their