Nocturama

A dazzling second collection from “an immensely gifted poet” (Eduardo C. Corral, author of Guillotine).
Spanning Appalachia to California, Will Brewer’s new poems attempt to make sense of some of life’s darkest turns: a father’s bout with leukemia, the slog of mental illness, a friend’s early death, and the rise of environmental catastrophes in the West.
Yet despite these difficult moments, strands of light emerge: the smell of an orange on a plane, the starburst of a car hitting a power line, a citrus tree in California sun. Mysterious hair loss prompts dermatologist visits and reveals “how dignified it felt / to be looked at like that, to be read, / a record of past exposures / becoming a map to possible futures.” It is the type of knowing in which “knowing nothing for sure feels like a special kind of freedom.” Over time, a seemingly endless night gives way and an aubade opens to a new possibility: love.
The second book of poems from this rising and lauded author, Nocturama offers a presence of mind and spirit that notices the mysterious, even in the wake of disaster.

Will Brewer’s first book of poems, I Know Your Kind, was a winner of the National Poetry Series. His debut novel, The Red Arrow, was published by Knopf in 2022 and received the Silver Medal for First Fiction from the California Book Awards. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Yale Review, The Nation, and The Sewanee Review. Formerly a Stegner Fellow, he’s now a Jones Lecturer at Stanford. He lives in Oakland.