The book needs a good editing job, but fortunately the errors are so basic - typos, words left out, wrong words - that the reader can easily supply the correction; but work with this much merit deserves a good editing job to bring the surface features up to par with the excellent poems.

When Hall talks about his wife, son, and daughters, the reader can understand how the title Arrows That Pierce the Heart was chosen. In these poems the reader feels the love Hall has for his family and his native land (eastern Kentucky). Some of the poems such as "What Will the Poor Miners Do" and "Back Then" give the reader a glimpse of life in the hills of eastern Kentucky in the early decades of last century. Hall said in his introduction, "This book of poems is about back then and out there because life is a journey."