Brotherful (or: My Life as Bryan)

I uploaded Brotherful to the printer yesterday, and I’ve put it up for pre-order on the SRP site. (Rob J. – don’t you dare. I’m sending you a copy.) Its cover art is by my friend Jonathan Kent Adams, who also created the cover art for DIG.

I admit it does feel a little indulgent so soon after Crow in the Desert, but this was always the plan. Crow is my playful, sexy little wild bird of a chapbook. Brotherful, that’s another part of me. Brotherful, I’d say is the core and the heart of me. Brotherful, in many ways, is the follow-up to My Life as Adam, the book that exploded me into poetic existence. It's been years and years and years in the making. It's been my life in the making. It's offical release date is July 30, but I'll likely let pre-orders sneak out early.

Bushra Rehman and I were trading voice notes earlier this week, and I told her, “Bushra, it’s good. I know it’s good.” When can a writer say that about their own work? I don't think I've ever said it before. And I don’t say it with ego. I say it with a knowing that I’ve leaned into where I’m supposed to be as a writer. I’ve synced my creative consciousness with where I’m supposed to be. These poems, I think, are the best that I’ve ever written, but, collectively, as this book, they are the mark I want to make—to leave—on this world. That, friends, is everything.

There are so many moments and call-backs to other lines I’ve written (other emotions I’ve felt) that bring things full circle in this book, and the cool thing is that they were often a surprise to discover. I’ll highlight one here and leave the rest to readers. I open the book with a poem from Adam, “Sons of Abraham,” which ends with the lines: “a nephew and a treehouse / these things my brother would have made.” Then, throughout Brotherful, there’s the slow build to a new baby in the family, a nephew (shout out to Oliver!), a linear heartstring that I didn’t even realize was threaded through the poems until I read the book from cover to cover as an advance copy. So obvious, you’d think I planned it.

Life has a way of healing us, even if we don't realize it's happening.

So, friends, this book is about love and healing. This book is about blood and chosen family. This book is about contradictions and being human.

This book is about me. I’m proud of it.

And it’s good.