Brass Neck

Reading Brass Neck, one thinks of Whitman’s passion for the body and insistence that one’s on the connection of all of our bodies, our voices, our pain and pleasure. Of course, Whitman wasn’t the first to give us the poetics of the body. The poems of this book make one think of Sappho and Catullus as much as they do of Whitman. And, yet, it is Walt’s barbaric yawp on the rooftops of the world that echoes so much into our own era. One thinks of Orhan Veli of Turkey and Anna Swir of Poland, Israel’s Yona Wollach and many others who have responded to his call. The author of Brass Neck responds as well. There is a large embrace of erotic and ecstatic impulses in this work. At their best, the poems in Brass Neck contain epigrammatic quality that is memorable in its reach for the tonal largesse: home is the chaos / where you feel / most alive. One is moved by the terrible pain and utter betrayal of girlhood in that many poems in this book showcase. And, at the same time, one is also surprised and compelled by the author’s uplift, by the unexpected tonalities, humor. This is a poet to watch. Ilya Kaminsky, Author of Deaf Republic