This collection consists at its core of a sequence of poems that speak to the loss of the writer’s brother to suicide. These poems stun us by their restraint and simplicity, and by their astonishment that this life, so important to so many, could be extinguished in such a manner. Harrison’s poems are impeccably crafted and move through narrative seamlessly—dry, naive, vulnerable, always accessible.

JEFFREY HARRISON is the author of Feeding the Fire (2001); Signs of Arrival (1996); and The Singing Underneath (1988); as well as the chapbook An Undertaking (2005). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Poetry, The Paris Review, The Yale Review, and Poets of the New Century, among others. He is currently on the faculty of the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine, and lives in the Boston area.