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Poems About Seeing Things as Others See Them

Brushstrokes and Glances, prize-winning poet Djelloul Marbrook's second book of poems, is about seeing things as others see them, something no democracy can do without.

This collection of poems is about paintings, painters and museums. Sometimes the poet addresses the painting, sometimes the painter, and sometimes he writes about people observing paintings and each other.

Marbrook's first book of poems, Far From Algiers, won the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize in 2007 and was published in 2008 by Kent State University Press. Two years later it won the International Book Award. It has been widely and warmly reviewed. An audio version is available.

The poet was born into a family of artists. The scents of turpentine, oil paint, acrylics and varnish are familiar to him. He writes about art not as rarefied experience but one essential to understanding the world in which we live. He regards an appreciation of art as the ability to see as others see and therefore essential to getting along with each other.

Brushstrokes and Glances is published by Deerbrook Editions of Maine as an 88-page six-by-nine paperback trade book (ISBN: 0982810016). The price is $16.95.

Deerbrook books are sold by

Small Press Distribution Service:

Amazon:

Barnes and Noble, Borders, and independent booksellers everywhere. They are also distributed by Baker & Taylor. Copies will soon be available for online purchase at the Deerbrook web site. Deerbrook will also make an audio version of Brushstrokes and Glances available for download from its web site.

Marbrook is a retired newspaper editor and executive. His novella, Alice Miller's Room, was published in 1999 by OnlineOriginals as an e-book and is still available. A second novella, Artemisia's Wolf, will be published by Prakash Books of India next year. He publishes a popular literary and cultural blog at djelloumarbook.com, frequently writing about contemporary poets he admires. Another web site, djelloulmarbrook-books.com, is devoted to his published works.

His poems have been published in many journals, including American Poetry Review, Oberon, Ledge, The Same and Barrow Street. Orbis 152, a British literary magazine, currently features his short story Yo Sheherazade and his poem, A Bowl of Petals.

"My poetry is about transforming myself, about using the moments of my life to make something transcendent. It's about co-creating with a collective consciousness," Marbrook says. "If I could I'd leave me out of it."

Here are some comments by highly regarded poets about Brushstrokes and Glances:

"Through precise and knowledgeable poetry about visual art, Djelloul Marbrook has made a book almost as good as visiting a museum." -Maggie Anderson

"Djelloul Marbrook looks at art the way a drinker drinks-deeply, passionately, and desperately, as if his life depended on it. Reading these poems makes you want to run out to your favorite museum and look again, as you have never looked before, until the lights go out." -Barbara Louise Ungar

"Djelloul Marbrook is one of those colossal poets able to bridge worlds-poetry and art, heart and mind-with rare wit, grace, and sincerity; a soft-spoken artist with the courage to face the 'fatal beckoning of his muse.' -Michael Roy Meyerhofer

Writing about Far From Algiers, Ungar, writing in Celaan, said, "Djelloul Marbrook sounds like no one else."

"I find some perfection of style, including images, in his verse," Susanna Roxman wrote in Prairie Schooner. Calling it as succinct as Emily Dickinson, quoted this passage:

Houses war to keep
what happens in them
from suck and blanch
of time.

A review in Rattle called the book ". . . the kind of book you want to buy over and over-partly so you can support such a fine emerging writer."