Irregular Heartbeats at the Park West

Irregular Heartbeats at the Park West is a collection of poetry by Russell Brakefield that explores how art and nature can lift us from grief and serve as lodestars in an uncertain world. It spans American landscapes and personal experience, seeking insights into the particulars of the natural world and everyday life. Inspired by Americana and literary landmarks, it captures the beautiful and often poignant complexities of the human experience.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 88 pages
Publication date: 23 January 2024
Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Irregular Heartbeats at the Park West is a captivating collection of poetry that transports us to the sheer wonder of being alive. Through intimate reflections on family histories, hardship, and everyday life, Russell Brakefield explores how art and nature can lift us from grief and serve as lodestars in an increasingly uncertain world. His poems span American landscapes and personal experience, dropping down in music venues, dark barrooms, back alleys, suburbs, brightly lit galleries, and lonely graveyards.

One poem asks, "How do we manage the weight of carrying all our histories inside us?" The poet seeks answers everywhere, seeking insights into the particulars of the natural world and the minutiae of everyday life. Inspired by an assemblage of Americana and a litany of literary landmarks—from spiritual epiphanies at the Hemingway house to a reckoning with privilege in Lucille Clifton's Baltimore—Brakefield explores how poetry can be influenced, propped up, and contorted by the American canon. Drawing on a depth of emotion, wit, and reverence for nature, this striking new collection captures the beautiful and often poignant complexities of the human experience.

Weight: 116g
Dimension: 132 x 203 x 8 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780814351024