The New Testament

November 3, 2014
Confident and sensitive, Brown's follow-up to his American Book Award-winning debut, PLEASE, signals his growing stature in the poetry world. He forms this collection around Biblical language and motifs, reworking them through the materiality and culture of modern America with particular sensitivity to gender, sexuality, and race. It's an audacious move in all its entanglements, but as brothers and lovers and gods resonate through one another, lines such as "I found myself bound to Him and bound to His/ Bidding" become full-bodied and evocative. While decidedly and beautifully political at times (in reverence and irreverence alike) Brown's grounding in biographical details and his hard-won investigation of love's powers emerge as powerfully as the surface themes. As the poem "Nativity" declares, "Lord, let even me/ And what the saints say is sin within/ My blood, which certainly shall see/ Deathâsee to it I meanâ/ Let that sting/ Last and be transfigured." Brown is a poet of sure technique, even as an occasional line, such as the declaration "To believe in God is to love/ What none can see," falls flat in comparison to the collection's tender music. Lyric and sturdy, however, these poems earn consistent attention as they redefine survival in a wounded world.

Starred review from September 15, 2014

Poems by American Book Award winner Brown (Please) have been described as "erotic and grief-stricken," and as "muscular and smart." In this book, the poet's "testament" is about love, survival, and redemption, and an experience that is imbued with a strong voice; a singing that is quietly insistent. His poems probe the violent yet intimate ways people intersect. "I cannot locate the origin/ Of slaughter, but I know/ How my own feels, that I live with it/ ...To get the living done." These durable proofs of one man's resilience aren't pretentious or purposefully obtuse. One of the pleasures of Brown's verses is his extraordinary use of line break, which enriches and propels the poem, offering surprise at every turn. "Will black men still love me/ If white men stop wanting me// Dead? Will white men stop/ Wanting me dead?" While Brown and his poetry are alive and vibrant, he reminds us, "We breathe until we don't./ Every last word is contagious." VERDICT Highly recommended for all poetry collections.--Karla Huston, Appleton, WI

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