Of Breaking Glass is an elegiac sequence for James Byrne’s brother, Robin, who passed away unexpectedly during the initial Covid lockdown. These poems, set in California’s Death Valley during a heatwave, are an attempt of one sibling to bury another’s first memory: the sound of breaking glass. Ritualising loss, memory and language, this tender, brilliant book, replete with stunning colour photographs, evokes the most intimate kind of writing. Of Breaking Glass is a series of poems that hold out the possibility of becoming something more than our inevitable, eventual end.