A review by dillarhonda
Please by Jericho Brown

Jericho Brown's Please blurs the line between violence and love. The suggestion that those who have experienced a violent childhood are more likely to experience violent intimate relationships is a subtle thread that binds these poems together. Brown's title, read as either a request or a plea for mercy, illuminates the complicated relationships victims can have with their abusers. The difference between abuse and love can be hard to see in these poems, with many meriting an immediate second or third reading. Intricately structured and radiating heat, Brown's poems are both difficult to read and impossible to look away from.