For My Brother

Greg Kuzma's For My Brother was originally published as a limited-edition, fine press book in 1981. That the publisher of Lewis-Clark Press recognizes its continued value, all these years later, is significant; For My Brother persists as Kuzma's best and most innovative, risk-taking work. A highly accomplished and emotional, cohesive piece that remains unparalleled in contemporary poetry, its renewed publication will provide it new and broader readership. Readers should expect this book to be dramatic, particularly because Kuzma thrusts the reader headlong into a montage of grief-primed insight arising from the poet's reflections upon his brother's life and tragic death. Indeed, For My Brother is extremely intimate; it may open old wounds, resurrect old ghosts. Yet, the book is a clear indictment that there is no such thing as private grief; rather, the detriment of grief is that we attempt to hide it and prove ourselves foolish in the effort. In Kuzma's creative vision, grief-awful and awe-inspiring-should be acted upon in the same fervency and intensity as grief itself creates. The result in For My Brother is something spectacular and permanently moving. --Mark Sanders, Stephen F. Austin State University