The Human Half

Deborah Brown’s second collection looks with imagination to the limitless possibilities of language, following surprising associations to find that which feels deep and true. Threaded with echoes of familial trauma—a sister’s battle with cancer, a brother’s struggles with depression—these lyric poems reveal an open-hearted speaker who finds solace in the beauties of celestial navigation, the flowers along the railroad tracks, and the brushwork of Vermeer and Van Gogh. Filled with quirks of perception, The Human Half holds space for wonder in the midst of life’s seasons of longing.