Powerful and moving…
This deeply affecting collection narrates Brown’s struggles with his parents’ separation, his mother’s recurring episodes of maniac depression, verbal abuse at the hands of his schizophrenic father, and his own battle with maniac depression. In “To My Trauma,” Brown recounts his downward spiral into schizoaffective disorder during his teens as constant strife and anxiety deprived him of any sense of normalcy. Poignant and heart wrenching, the poems “To Mother” and “To Father” tug at readers’ hearts as Brown tries to come to terms with his mother’s dementia and his father’s unexpected descend into homelessness in his old age. “Whisper – To My Brother” is heartening while in “Break,” he explores his disorder and his coping mechanisms. Constructed in a vivid, free style verse, Brown’s poems bleed anguish and heartbreak and his feelings of desperation and powerlessness show the reality of mental illness.
