It is with an appetite, even after the feast, that Gaylord Brewer writes the poems of Exit Pursued by a Bear, the 2004 collection from Cherry Grove. Beyond the innocuous fruit fetishes, the near pornographic pole beans of “Co-op Girl,” Brewer dines on the ironies of interaction, and likewise, in assuming the authority of speaker, he chooses, with great immediacy and poignancy, what words to swallow, what to leave out of his lyrics. He writes, “and though I believe/I am correct, I couldn’t identify about what.” It is in these silences that the uneasiness, the regret, surfaces much like oil on still water and nudges the reader towards “some saner madness.”
For more information about Gaylord Brewer, see his profile on the Meacham Writer’s Conference website.
Reviewed by Emilia Phillips (2009)
Sequoya Review 