“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

“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