[New-Poetry] Facebook Poets: Brent Goodman

[David Graham]

Speaking of buying books, let me highly recommend Brent Goodman's  
first full-length collection, *The Brother Swimming Beneath Me*,  
which is just out from Black Lawrence Press.

Full disclosure:  Brent was a student of mine way back when, and yes,  
I've plugged his work before.  In fact, I've blurbed the new book,  
too. But that doesn't alter the fact that it's a terrific collection.

The book's jacket carries a reduced version of the blurb I wrote.   
Here's the full copy:

"In the first line of The Brother Swimming Beneath Me, his long- 
awaited and stunning debut collection, Brent Goodman announces:   
"There is no afterlife."  But there is:  in poem after poem "the eye  
plays beautiful tricks" with everything it witnesses, and the past is  
resurrected in mind and heart.  The book as a whole, not just its  
opening poem, becomes a potent secular prayer, one with sorrow at its  
heart.  For a brother's early death haunts this book, and radiates  
out from the dazzling title poem at its center to cast its shadow on  
everything. Yet the author's firm craft and uncommonly mature vision  
transform loss to a complex, buoyant beauty.  The wealth of physical  
experience is attended to so alertly that it merges, finally, with  
the spiritual. Technically, these impressively shaped poems range  
from experiments in prose to fluent sonnets; thematically, they  
explore brotherly love in just about every imaginable sense. The  
poems are as rich with delight as with wisdom, and like the good  
musician he also is, Goodman makes the difficult look natural."

Not yet available on Amazon, but you can find Brent on Facebook as  
well as on his own blog, where the book is currently available for  
purchase:  http://brent-goodman.blogspot.com/

His blog began, as many seem to these days, as a promotional tool.   
But there's a lot else on it besides Goodman's own poems (good as  
they are).  And if you ask, he'll gladly be your Facebook friend. . . .


========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
==========================================




On Apr 11, 2009, at 12:27 PM, Chris Lott wrote:

> I've bought a half-dozen books in the last few months thanks to
> invitations to groups and/or announcements by the poets through
> Facebook...
>
> c
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20090411/1d8e1368/attachment.html