Local Fauna

“Local Fauna opens with a meta-poem about Jack Spicer, and I couldn’t help but think of his ‘dictated’ poetry, poetry as vessel, poetry getting down what needs to be said. Brian Brodeur’s poems have this urgency—life, death, cruelty, politics, war, capitalism, and love. Hard truths come through the past, radio interviews, zoo animals, neighbours, personas, and pop songs. Brian Broduer’s poetry has insistence and morality, inclusivity and beauty. Local Fauna is terrific.”—Denise Duhamel

“Brian Brodeur’s formal skill, his feel for the whole history beneath a sentence, a line, a syllable, is matched here only by his unsentimental compassion for the people he renders in his poems. I can think of few other poets who capture what contemporary American life actually feels, looks, and sounds like as movingly as Brodeur does. Poems such as ‘Cousins,’ ‘Local Fauna,’ and ‘The Register’ will be with us for a long time indeed. Brian Brodeur is a marvel.” —Peter Campion