The University of Wisconsin Press

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Poetry

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Sea of Faith John Brehm The Brittingham Prize in Poetry Ronald Wallace, General Editor Winner of the 2004 Brittingham Prize in Poetry "The poems in Sea of Faith present us with a vivid dramatic voice, one determined to engage with a world that often seems intangible and remote, and to resist a world that seems all too real and disappointing. The speaker here is both self-mocking and self-accepting, taking his concerns seriously but always distant enough from them to regard them as a small part of a larger human story, a story we recognize at once to be our own." —Carl Dennis, Brittingham Prize judge and author of Practical Gods In a masterful blending of lyric and narrative, Sea of Faith ranges across interior states and external worlds. From the Sierra Nevadas to New York City subways, from an imagined friendship with Lao Tzu to a meditation on Coney Island, from a comic and poignant classroom discussion of "Dover Beach" to a sexual fantasy spawned by a tedious poetry reading, John Brehm's poems explore the human predicament with tenderness, compassion, and unforgettable humor. LAYABOUT Do nothing and everything will be done, that's what Lao Tzu said, who walked around talking 2,500 years ago and now his books practically grow on trees they're so popular and if he were alive today beautiful women would rush up to him like waves lapping at the shores of his wisdom. That's the way it is, I guess: humbling. But if I could just unclench my fists, empty out my eyes, turn my mind into a prayer flag for the wind to play with, we could be brothers, him the older one who's seen and not done it all and me still unlearning, both of us slung low in our hammocks, our hats tipped forwards, hands folded neatly, like bamboo huts, above our hearts. © Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System John Brehm has published poems in Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, The Southern Review, Barrow Street, Prairie Schooner, and The Best American Poetry, 1999. He is author of the chapbook The Way Water Moves, published by Flume Press, and is associate editor of The Oxford Book of American Poetry. He lives in Brooklyn and works as a freelance writer. Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.) Of Related Interest: Help is on the Way John Brehm Winner of the 2012 Four Lakes Prize in Poetry "Reading John Brehm, it is difficult not to be charmed by his voice and glittering wit... Brehm is the poet-friend you’ve always wanted...a plain-speaking raconteur— delightfully hyperbolic, ironic, and comically self-deprecating."—Mike Wilmot, Prairie Schooner

November 2004 120 pp.  6 x 9 Paper $14.95 t ISBN 978-0-299-20204-0 Cloth $26.95 s ISBN 978-0-299-20200-2 ADD TO CART Visit johnbrehm.net "Fun, wisdom, tasty language. Sea of Faith has real subways in it as well as real rivers, mountains and dogs, scoops of heartbreak, sightings of beauty. Yes, sad or happy, the poems are alive. Sea of Faith was a complete pleasure for me to read." —Alicia Ostriker, author of The Crack in Everything "John Brehm writes on a knife edge. His voice would be ironic if it weren't for the sustained emotion, the opening to the unknown, the 'electric calm.' These elegant poems wear their eloquence lightly; the stakes are high. Sea of Faith is an unforgettable book." —D. Nurkse, author of The Fall

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