Laynie Browne

P R a C T I C E Laynie Browne

Poetry. Dear reader: practice opening this book, practice turning its pages, practice reading these words and returning to them, and practice these practices repeatedly. Laynie Browne has written a wondrous guide book that doesn't show us where we have not yet been, but more importantly, more beautifully, returns us to where we are--in this body that is mine, this body that breathes, this mind that thinks (or thinks it thinks). Make no mistake, these poems each are small forms of best advice, showing that truest courage requires endless opening to the moment one is in. Lucky for us, the days come as these poems do, one following another, each promising that we have yet another chance to practice what matters most, to arrive in that exalted attention in which the mind's devotion and the arm's embrace and the body's nerves and the lung's deep breath are one. Browne is a poet unrivalled in the generosities she offers her readers, and so we have now, again, a book that knows the gift is in the work, and the work takes practice.--Dan Beachy-Quick