The Human Half
Published on 20. June 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
112 pages
978-1-942683-80-3 (ISBN)
Description
Threaded with echoes of familial trauma-a sister's battle with cancer, a brother's struggles with depression-the lyric poems in The Human Half reveal an open-hearted speaker who finds solace in the beauties of celestial navigation, the flowers along the railroad tracks, and the brushwork of Vermeer and Van Gogh. Filled with quirks of perception, Deborah Brown holds space for wonder amidst of life's seasons of longing.
Reviews / Votes
"Deborah Brown brings to her poems an attentiveness so fine, and so intense, that it concentrates into passion. With her probing curiosity, her seemingly galactic range of tone and subject, and her masterful ear, this poet asks the most fundamental questions: 'How to do celestial navigation for myself,/for whoever is left?' Deborah Brown's The Human Half makes an original and profound contribution to contemporary poetry." -Peter Campion"Everywhere between the Cambrian and earthly world to the stars and our lost moon, Deborah Brown sees a world as various and rich as her language, and in many ways because of it. Fernando Pessoa wrote that words 'are tangible bodies, visible sirens, incarnate sensualities,' which is to say they lead us, as Deborah's superb book does, into worlds beyond them. It is sight that guides her, as observation, dream or memory, through a startling style that ranges from a kind of realistic surrealism to realism. It is perhaps the dramatic tension involved in trying to see so much that lends her its power: as she writes in one poem: 'At twilight, even birds lose part of their vision.' No matter. Here is a world of objects as you have never seen them before, and the way she sees them reveals a way of living in the world that can only enrich our lives. More than a book, this is a world you need to enter." -Richard Jackson
"There is a kind of scientific curiosity in these poems, a keenness of intellect and passion for knowing, but through feeling rather than reason ('With fingers warm and thirsty, I steal: / a pomegranate, a silverfish and once, / strawberries in a thatched box.') Accomplished and thrilling, engaged and engaging, these poems sway toward and away from 'the human half' in fascinating and surprising ways-the other half being the world and its astonishments." -Joan Houlihan
Show Additional Fields
TypeDescription for sales peopleAudienceUnrestrictedFormatHTMLText/LinkDeborah Brown's first book, Walking the Dog's Shadow (BOA Editions, 2009), won the A. J. Poulin Jr. Prize from BOA Editions and a New Hampshire Literary Award.
The natural world features heavily in this collection, giving it a special appeal for readers in New England and other rural places.
Show Additional Fields
Contact Us
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
About
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Rochester
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 226 mm
Width: 150 mm
Thickness: 6 mm
Weight
136 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-942683-80-3 (9781942683803)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Deborah Brown's first book, Walking the Dog's Shadow (BOA Editions, 2009), won the A. J. Poulin Jr. Award from BOA Editions and a New Hampshire Literary Award. With Maxine Kumin and Annie Finch, she edited Lofty Dogmas: Poets on Poetics (Univ. of Arkansas Press, 2005). With Richard Jackson and Susan Thomas, she translated the poems in Last Voyage: Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli (Red Hen Press, 2010). She lives in Warner, NH.