Strange Flowers

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Bryan Byrdlong's debut </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Strange Flowers</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> fashions a kind of suit an armor a disguise out of the folk and pop cultural creation of the zombie. In response to historical prejudice but more specifically in response to fear of Black people in America the poetry in this collection uses the idea of the zombie to offer an unbiased view of Black struggle the zombie being a suit sometimes forced upon Black people and sometimes worn willingly.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Bryan Byrdlong's </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Strange Flowers</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> is a staggering debut that maps the lines and links between the living and undead ritual and where the speaker belongs. Byrdlong's exploration of the zombie from the Caribbean to cocktails marks what changes us takes us out of ourselves and why we long to be transformed.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>-Donika Kelly author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>The Renunciations </em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>and</span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> Bestiary</em></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The poems of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Strange Flowers</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> seem to want to be spoken like a series of prayers or chants a beseeching not to right wrongs but to stand together in our witness of them in our ability to not turn away: Does anyone else shed/a tear a smile? Is it just me? And the sense of desperation Bryan Byrdlong has (or wants us to have for one another) is made all the more clear by just how much the poet labors over every line for a precision aimed toward sublimity. We have come to/pay respect to our mothers our mother tongue/which heals speaks for itself is here in our collective/magnetic spin our slew of aphorisms our revolutionary/lilt honed writes Byrdlong in this beautiful debut.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>-Jericho Brown author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>The Tradition</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> and </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>New Testament</em></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Bryan Byrdlong's </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Strange Flowers</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> opens with the speaker's creation myth his birth by the white glove's careless C-section mother's innards unspooled in attempted anthropomancy his exponential growth perceived as menacing looming two-headed. It is a birth into a fiery embodiment of death by white culture wearing the mourning clothes of black jeans black hoodie black menis. Thus is the origin story of the multivocal American Monster that articulates sings and rhapsodizes this epic collection. </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>-Diane Seuss author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>frank: sonnets</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> and </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Modern Poetry</em></p>