From python hunting to Swami Keerti's laughing meditation, from a death in the family to a burial on the rural acres where he's stood his ground for a decade, Gaylord Brewer extends and explodes his career-long obsessions in Give Over, Graymalkin. This 8th collection of poems is a journal of loss and recovery, departure and surprising return, fleeting hours in a world diminished yet wondrous. Seas writhe with uncharted beasts. Horsemen gather, conflagrant beneath sword and cross. A daughter mounts a bicycle and a divorce has the Harley delivered. From India to France to Spain, to the birdsong and day lilies of his unruly garden, Brewer continues as poetic conquistador mapping our longing, melancholy, and joy. With his characteristic wit and compassion, signature sculpted lines, and incantatory vigor, buried metaphors arise, holy days pass, toasts are raised, suns set over the desert of the animate dead. And the weary traveler? He approaches a dark corridor that may or may not be the way home.
Author Biography:
Gaylord Brewer's most recent books are his 8th poetry collection, Give Over, Graymalkin (Red Hen Press, 2011), and the comic novella Octavius the 1st (Red Hen Press, 2008). Earlier books of poetry include Presently a Beast (Coreopsis Books, 1996), Devilfish (Red Hen Press, 1999; winner of the inaugural Benjamin Saltman Poetry Prize), Four Nails (Snail's Pace Press, 2001; winner of the 2001 Snail's Pace Poetry Prize), Barbaric Mercies (Red Hen Press, 2003), Exit Pursued by a Bear (Cherry Grove Collections, 2004), Let Me Explain (Iris Press, 2006), and The Martini Diet (Dream Horse Press, 2008; winner of the 2006 Orphic Prize). His critical works include David Mamet and Film (McFarland, 1993) and Charles Bukowski (Macmillan, 1997). He has published 800 poems in journals and anthologies, such as Best American Poetry and The Bedford Introduction to Literature, and his plays have been staged in Chicago, Columbus, Nashville, New York, and Valdez, Alaska. Among his recent residencies were the Global Arts Village (India) and Can Serrat and the Fundación Valparaíso (both in Spain). Brewer, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, earned a Ph.D. from Ohio State University. He is a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, where he founded and edits the journal Poems & Plays, and has also taught in Russia, Kenya, and the Czech Republic. In 2009, he was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in Poetry from the Tennessee Arts Commission.
