Daniel Brown Poet
Daniel Brown Poet
Poetry

Taking the Occasion

“My defenses against incoming poetry are formidable, but Brown’s weighty little book penetrated them without effort and went off in a ball of light. I revel in the way he writes.” ~ Clive James

What More?

“Brown’s poems are splendid demonstrations of the power to be obtained from drawing the reins really tight. Yet in keeping faith with such strict forms, Brown hasn’t squeezed out the breath, feeling, or beauty.” — X. J. Kennedy

Criticism

Subjects in Poetry

“With its reader friendliness, its distilled brevity, its infectious enthusiasms, it seems destined to be a classic, a guidebook that belongs in the hands of students and practitioners alike.” ~ A. E. Stallings, MacArthur Award winner, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry finalist

“This wholly original book is the most enlivening look at poetry I’ve come across in a while. There are notable observations—insightful, funny, arresting—on every page; the writing is consistently instinct with wit. Brown is unafraid to state what may seem like the obvious, but is a too often obscured truth: that what subjects give poetry is humanness. Nobody to my knowledge has written a book that so directly goes to this heart of things.” ~ William H. Pritchard, Henry Clay Folger Professor of English Emeritus, Amherst College

“Subjects in Poetry is a surprising, lively, and illuminating look at a ‘subject’ I would have thought ungraspable.” ~Christian Wiman, author of Survival Is a Style

Why Bach?

“Why Bach? offers a marvelous new way for lay people like me to read about music… I couldn’t tear myself away from it… The self-playing scores and clever annotations let me see and hear what the text drew my attention to.” ~ Helen Vendler, Professor of English, Harvard University, MacArthur Award winner

Bach, Beethoven, Bartok: Confluence in Music

“Brown puts into words and crystal-clear theory all sorts of things I’d previously felt only as intuitions… His essay has been a gift in opening my understanding.” ~ Alain de Botton, best-selling author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Architecture of Happiness, and other books

Reviews of My Poetry

From Contemporary Poetry Review

From The Washington Examiner

From Open Letters Review

From Versecraft: Podcast on “The Birth of God”

Reviews of My Criticism

From Poetry Society of America

From Goodreads

From Literary Matters