Overview

In this, Cory Brown's sixth volume of poetry, he runs the gamut of philosophical speculation from the meaning of early family experiences raising cattle to more abstract thoughts on reality and the passing of time. Some poems aspire to wed the beauty of language with that of the natural world, occasionally by way of a Romantic aesthetic and at other times by way of a postmodern process, following the self-reflective dictates of his mind as it associates its way down the page. And down the page is where the poems venture into whatever tonal avenue offers itself, wry humor, painful lament, exuberant celebration. These poems are musical, smart, sometimes narrative, sometimes funny, and always deeply contemplative. Included in the collection are over a dozen poems published in reputable literary magazines, such as Nimrod, Cloudbank, december, and LitMag. LitMag awarded one of the poems, ""Giant Sequoias,"" a runner-up prize in their annual flash fiction competition, a poem that it could be said serves as the centerpiece to the volume, as it grounds the collection in an expression of empathy for all those who've experienced tragedy in their lives. The poem is set against the backdrop of a volume of poems expressing their love and appreciation for lost loved ones as well as for the natural world in our--and in particular Brown's--everyday life.

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Reviews

Cory Brown shows how love for life intensifies as we approach death. He slowly turns everyday words so that we can apprehend our daily joy. Aging becomes fireworks bursting with care, wisdom, and surprise. To read these poems is to want to read them again, and again. -Naeem Inayatullah author of Pedagogy as Encounter: Beyond the Teaching Imperative After a book in tight haiku-stanzas and another of sonnets, Cory Brown returns to the form of some earlier work, the prose poem. By letting the sentence be the measure, he lets his mind range widely. And we get to watch as memory, meaning, and perception slip and shift: how ordinary moments like taking out the compost after morning coffee can become a revelation, how a memory of hearing his mother weeping can keep turning to spin the fullness of a life, and how encountering Giant Redwoods can refer the suffering of history and of so many other people and of other living beings. These poems open out, as prayer and meditation often do, and what they receive is made beautiful. -Edward Dougherty author of House, World, Heaven, from Kelsay Books, and Selected Poems, from FutureCycle Press

Author Information

This is Cory Brown's sixth collection of poems. His last three-What May Be Lost, elisions, and A Long Slow Climb-are from Cayuga Lake Books. His first book was published by Swallow's Tale Press upon winning their national contest. His poems have appeared in Bomb, Nimrod International, West Branch, Northwest Review, Arroyo, The Fiddlehead, Postmodern Culture, Cloudbank, december, LitMag, Mudfish, Oberon Poetry, The Comstock Review, and many others. His essays have appeared in South Loop Review, Journal of Narrative Politics, and Writing on the Edge. He grew up in western Oklahoma and took an M.F.A. from Cornell University in 1984, where he studied with Archie Ammons and Robert Morgan. He retired from Ithaca College's Writing Department in 2023. He lives in Trumansburg, New York, outside of Ithaca.

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