Brilliant Little Body

Brilliant Little Body is a collection of poems that tell the story of survival, of the blessing-and the curse-of being a poet, of seeking love and getting your heart shattered instead. Jenkins owns the body in this collection-every gorgeous flaw and every brilliant blemish. She claims every mistake and misstep, but she doesn't apologize. Instead, she possesses them, tucks them close to her skin, and wears them like a tattoo. This collection is brave and fierce, with enough humor to balance the tears you'll find leaking out of your eyes without even realizing you were crying.

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I need to hire the speaker in these funny, vulnerable poems to be my guru. She admits everything. Her sense of the absurd is epic. She understands that humans have to make friends with chaos, that this is especially true for women, and that the imagination is the best escape hatch we have. She gets that beauty and appetite and loss and love and making a million mistakes are inextricable. "There's an earsplitting loneliness to this life-" she tells us, so we know we can trust her. Jenkins is a generous, witty poet, able to juice the fruits of melancholy and make them into wine. Amy Gerstler, author of Index of Women Brilliant Little Body walks into the darkest hallways of the self, shines a flashlight on the shadows, and calls them what they are: beautiful, brutal, and entirely human-and Jenkins is our trusty and whip smart tour guide. These poems are dazzling and quick, each as sharp and brilliant as an eclipse. Sometimes devastating, sometimes hilarious-but always driven by a white-knuckled hope and cynical optimism. This collection strikes the perfect balance of playful and ruthless-stories of grief, the body, and heartbreak are told with the kind of poetic light that allows each one of us to see ourselves with a little more compassion and clarity. Desireé Dallagiacomo, author of Sink The speaker in Brilliant Little Body vulnerably kneels at big questions then bravely seeks the answers. Brett Elizabeth Jenkins gently reminds us that human tragedies can strike anywhere: a parking lot of a Perkins, on frozen lakes, with butter dishes, but the heroic upswing of this collection is hope. We wonder with the sympathetic speaker what of the next world? We truly want to know, and we want her to tell us and show us these impossible feelings of joy, this wise-hilarious poet. Jenkins has seismically shaken our hearts with a tender field guild for living, this, her direct tap into humanity, needs to be on every poetry bookshelf. Erica Anderson, author of Midwestern Poet's Incomplete Guide to Symbolism