I Know Your KindI Know Your Kind
Poems
Title rated 0 out of 5 stars, based on 0 ratings(0 ratings)
Book, 2017
Current format, Book, 2017, First edition, Available .Book, 2017
Current format, Book, 2017, First edition, Available . Offered in 0 more formatsSelected for the National Poetry Series by Ada Limón, I Know Your Kind is a haunting, blistering debut collection about the American opioid epidemic and poverty in rural Appalachia.
In West Virginia, fatal overdoses on opioids have spiked to three times the national average. In these poems, William Brewer demonstrates an immersive, devastating empathy for both the lost and the bereaved, the enabled and the enabler, the addict who knocks late at night and the brother who closes the door. Underneath and among this multiplicity of voices runs the Appalachian landscape—a location, like the experience of drug addiction itself, of stark contrasts: beauty and ruin, nature and industry, love and despair.
Uncanny, heartbreaking, and often surreal, I Know Your Kind is an unforgettable elegy for the people and places that have been lost to opioids.
"This work quakes and blooms and dares us to try to resist the world's grace."-Ada Limón
<p><strong>Selected for the National Poetry Series by Ada Limón, <em>I Know Your Kind </em>is a haunting, blistering debut collection about the American opioid epidemic and poverty in rural Appalachia.</strong></p><p>In West Virginia, fatal overdoses on opioids have spiked to three times the national average. In these poems, William Brewer demonstrates an immersive, devastating empathy for both the lost and the bereaved, the enabled and the enabler, the addict who knocks late at night and the brother who closes the door. He shows us the high, at once numbing and transcendent: “this warm moment when I forget which part of me / I blamed.” He shows us the overdose, when “the poppies on my arms / bruised red petals.” And he shows us the mourner, attending his high school reunion: “I guess we were underdressed: / me in my surf shoes / you in an urn.” Underneath and among this multiplicity of voices runs the Appalachian landscape—a location, like the experience of drug addiction itself, of stark contrasts: beauty and ruin, nature and industry, love and despair.</p><p>Uncanny, heartbreaking, and often surreal, <em>I Know Your Kind </em>is an unforgettable elegy for the people and places that have been lost to opioids.</p>
"This work quakes and blooms and dares us to try to resist the world's grace."<b>-Ada Limón</b>
In West Virginia, fatal overdoses on opioids have spiked to three times the national average. In these poems, William Brewer demonstrates an immersive, devastating empathy for both the lost and the bereaved, the enabled and the enabler, the addict who knocks late at night and the brother who closes the door. Underneath and among this multiplicity of voices runs the Appalachian landscape—a location, like the experience of drug addiction itself, of stark contrasts: beauty and ruin, nature and industry, love and despair.
Uncanny, heartbreaking, and often surreal, I Know Your Kind is an unforgettable elegy for the people and places that have been lost to opioids.
"This work quakes and blooms and dares us to try to resist the world's grace."-Ada Limón
<p><strong>Selected for the National Poetry Series by Ada Limón, <em>I Know Your Kind </em>is a haunting, blistering debut collection about the American opioid epidemic and poverty in rural Appalachia.</strong></p><p>In West Virginia, fatal overdoses on opioids have spiked to three times the national average. In these poems, William Brewer demonstrates an immersive, devastating empathy for both the lost and the bereaved, the enabled and the enabler, the addict who knocks late at night and the brother who closes the door. He shows us the high, at once numbing and transcendent: “this warm moment when I forget which part of me / I blamed.” He shows us the overdose, when “the poppies on my arms / bruised red petals.” And he shows us the mourner, attending his high school reunion: “I guess we were underdressed: / me in my surf shoes / you in an urn.” Underneath and among this multiplicity of voices runs the Appalachian landscape—a location, like the experience of drug addiction itself, of stark contrasts: beauty and ruin, nature and industry, love and despair.</p><p>Uncanny, heartbreaking, and often surreal, <em>I Know Your Kind </em>is an unforgettable elegy for the people and places that have been lost to opioids.</p>
"This work quakes and blooms and dares us to try to resist the world's grace."<b>-Ada Limón</b>
Title availability
Find this title on
College of San Mateo LibrariesAbout
Subject and genre
Details
Publication
- Minneapolis, Minnesota : Milkweed Editions, 2017.
Opinion
More from the community
Community lists featuring this title
There are no community lists featuring this title
Community contributions
There are no quotations from this title
There are no quotations from this title
From the community