In this vivid, contemplative, far-reaching, yet wholly plain-spoken collection of moments appearing as lenses through which to see the world beyond our moments, Cicada Rex brings readers the debut of a virtuoso exploration of the power of concision in lyric poetry - a testament to the infinitesimal moments of life that the poet makes truly profound as he turns them in his palm calling to mind the natural scenes of Chinese Zen poems. Blending beautiful lyricism with the stark eye and voice of the everyday, Cicada Rex marks the entrance of a riveting new voice in American poetry.
Praise for Cicada Rex
“The poems in Spencer Brown’s debut collection make music from the small moments of noticing all around. Here, ‘Everything rises in the cold,’ and there is a sense of hope among a fragile world the poet asks us to enter. As the poet writes, this collection transforms language into a landscape we might traverse, or simply sit down and watch the way the light breaks through a stand of trees. These are poems of faith and parenthood, of reverie and lineage, all with an eye turned toward what waits over time’s horizon. A beautiful book of poetry I will return to again and again.”
— Matthew Wimberley, author of Daniel Boone's Window and All the Great Territories
“In tender, plainspoken poems, Cicada Rex yearns to slow the world down to the dead crawl of the aching human heart. At this devotional speed—slower than our clocks, slower even than the arcs of the stars—these poems hear what hums below our workaday concerns. But the approach here isn’t transcendence; rather, Brown’s stance is refreshingly practical: ‘The house smells like someone died here because someone died here.’ As modern life bombards our attention and demands an endless to-do list, this poet quietly refuses—choosing, instead, to be ‘like these turtles in / The sun, waiting for that brief moment / When nothing becomes something.’”
—Anders Carlson-Wee, author of Disease of Kings