Poetry drawn from the primal hunger of the sea and those on it, painting an eerie vision of loss and longing in the tradition of William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe... High fantasy, brimming with goddesses, witches, mermaids, and sorcerers... Themes and imagery often feeding from one piece into the next like a tributary into a river. Imagery used to deftly shift the tone.
Brewer is an adept in the mystical school of language... He travelled the world, sighting foreign shores, silky snaking strands, tropical climes...and endured many nights and days alone. The poems in Copacabana at Midnight resurrect and transform this experience into heady storm-tossed stuff.
The voice informing these verses is wry, intelligent - always a keen commentary on nature and on man's place in it... Brewer practices a marvelous syncretism, where sea life and flora dance, drift, and meld into one another... Longing and love are rendered with equal measures of pain and panache. These gems, balanced by the book's story collection, are accessible, contemporary, never abstruse; many rhyme.
Those fond of poetry and fables will cherish this book; those new to poetry will find it a Jacob's ladder to Parnassus. Readers will heartily welcome the cruise to strange ports of call, from Borneo to Brazil and many points in between.
An intriguing compilation of speculative poetry and eleven spellbinding short stories. There is a beauty and oddity to (these) weirdly hypnotic tales, which include witches, demons, strange birds, fearsome orbs, and seductive sirens.
Brewer demonstrates a mastery of the short form, filling his collection with uncanny reveries. It's a captivating read, and Brewer's writing undoubtedly will linger in the minds of readers long after the last page is turned.