No Need of Sympathy

Any one poem in Fleda Brown's eighth collection may touch on contemporary science, physics, family, politics, the nature of poetry, and the nature of reality. There are sonnets for all ten grandchildren written by a grandmother, poems about the Big Bang, about child labor, the moon over Paris, and tent caterpillars, all written with humility, humor, curiosity, and a deep love of life. The dead seem like holes in the universe, each a random fuzz-spot, a sad little purse. Fleda Brown's awards include the Felix Pollak Prize, the Philip Levine Prize, and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award.