How the Body Works the Dark

by Derrick C. Brown

How the Body Works the Dark is the new, long awaited collection of love poems from one of America’s most beloved touring poets, Derrick C. Brown. These haunting, funny, erotic love poems fit neatly into the canon of Brown’s quotable style. This book is the perfect way to say I need you now, right now. Mostly written in the Channel Islands, Los Angeles, Texas, and Serenbe in the Chatahoochie Hills of Georgia, these poems are feisty and capture the human experience of being horny and beautiful at the same time. There is a yearning in these poems, a fire set bright that burns hotter than ever. “Our love is a lake full of lightning.”

Genres: Poetry

90 pages, Paperback

Published May 30, 2018

Reviews

[Maria Jose Hayaux du Tilly]

Everyone in the world should read this, just absolutely incredible

[Mollie]

Perfect perfect perfect

[Mayra Flores]

Could not put this down, start to finish. The language and imagery Derrick’s words draw out are magic.

[Penelope]

Derrick C. Brown has a distinct voice. Funny, dark, obscene, irreverent. I just didn't feel like that voice was talking to me at all. I felt very little connection to any of the ideas of love or darkness that he describes.

But, a few that I did like.

SOON

Dearest Soon,
I think I may be in love with you, Soon.

Night breaker, you set this weather off.
50-watt kiss.
How I am nourished by the night chaos
in your skin.

The service that overcomes me
when your legs ache.

O, how I need you here simple.
O, how I want your breath of cinder flint, squalls of wonder.
O, how your body works the dark.

My love. My Soon.
You are my almost.

(How The Body Works The Dark, pg. 3)

OPEN THE WINDOWS

sing wide in the mouth
the melodies of night
until the window inside
finally crawls out of you.

(How The Body Works The Dark, pg. 16)

I also liked "The Gravity in Beverly Hills Is Fantastic" (pg. 56) and "New Snow Doom" (pg. 65).