Brandon Downing / The Shirt Weapon

Germ Monographs, 2002.
ISBN 0-9709928-0-7 / 88 pages / $10.00
Available at Small Press Distribution (spdbooks.org)

ADVANCED PRAISE

As lush as Rossetti, as energetic as O'Hara, as intense as Mayakovsky, Brandon Downing writes with masterful abandon.
—Brent Cunningham, SPD Catalog


"My Clear Sister," "Poem," and other other pieces sent me to pasternakian breath and surreal admission.
—Alexei Parschikov


The title poem proclaims, "my shirt is my weapon. My enemy tyranny." Almost at the last minute, the poet finally changes his shirt in the light, where we might see him. Or can we?
—Frank Sherlock, Book City


A stylized history-as-bitchin'-travelogue, even when one's gaze is limited to Milan, Naples, Venice, and those lutenist places inbetween...could the pen of Downing substitute for welder's torch?
—Jack Kimball on Lazio, Readme