All of Us Reticent, Here, Together

Families guard the unsaid. Neighbours listen over the fence and whisper. Technobabble, journalese, and the relentless sloganeering of politics strip-mine our last great cultural resource: words. Amid the detritus of that site, Stephen Brockwell’s All of Us Reticent, Here, Together stakes out a reclamation zone, prospecting for an authentic voice in a world of shocking scarcity, nauseating abundance, and ubiquitous twittering. In All of Us Reticent, Here, Together, Stephen Brockwell tenders an unsettled confessional: the poet decentring himself to cast light on the shame of being human. Awkward, wry, acerbic, these poems nonetheless find intimacy in all the locations of culture. –Soraya Peerbaye, author of Tell: Poems for a Girlhood Stephen Brockwell’s poetry, already luminous with intelligence and subtle musical energy, pulses with a new, raw, elegiac edge in his latest collection, All of Us Reticent, Here, Together. Ever curious, ever vigilant, Brockwell’s voice sorts through bruised truths and reverberant detail to deliver these poems of startling tenderness and honesty. –David O'Meara, author of A Pretty Sight