In 2017, Rich Smith wrote, "The best essay I read this year was called 'Nightingale: A Gloss,' and it was written by Seattle writer (but current University of Utah prof) Paisley Rekdal and published in the American Poetry Review. In a straightforward, no-bullshit tone, and with her characteristically sharp eye for scholarly associations, Rekdal weaves the story of a sexual assault she experienced while hiking alone in Loch Ness with Ovid’s story of Philomela, other rapes of antiquity, and also with the story of her writing a poem called 'Philomela.' Her reckoning of the assault, and her reckoning of her own reckoning, reveals sexual violence for what it is: a pillar, not an aberration, of Western civilization. She has two new books coming out: a book of poems from Copper Canyon called Imaginary Vessels and a book-length essay called The Broken Country: On Trauma, a Crime, and the Continuing Legacy of Vietnam. So if she doesn’t read 'Nightingale' at this event, seek it out."