Our Poison Horse

Our Poison Horse is the newest poetry collection released by Derrick C. Brown. Brown is the winner of the Texas Book of The Year Prize, 2013. The New York Times calls his work a "...rekindling of the faith in the shocking, weird and beautiful power of words." Brown finally sold the ship, The Sea Section, upon which he lived for years in the Long Beach harbor, after which he took to hunting for a city that was affordable and had a bustling writer's community. He landed in Austin, Texas and when the progress of that town got to be intense, he moved to the nearby countryside in Elgin, Texas, and from that pastoral setting came unfurling this new collection of his most personal work to date.


Brown has been known as one of the most touring, well travelled living poets in America. He has based his whole writing career on changing peoples minds about poetry and he feels a quality, unforgettable live experience can achieve that.


Brown told himself he needed a 10-year hiatus from writing poetry when he felt the well of creativity had dried up. 2 years ago, he wrote a one-hour long 'poetic play' called Strange Light, commissioned by The Noord Nederlands Dans Group in Holland. The piece was performed by 14 dancers and accompanied by a live orchestra using music composed by fellow Americans, Emily Wells and Timmy Straw. While he was working on a new libretto for Wayne State University in Detroit, he was set up in a seemingly pastoral country setting, where, as Brown says, "an incredible war broke out inside and out, such bright, massive storms, snakes, guns, howling wind, hard sun: all kinds of poems gushed forth. I gave in to the process and my best work to date was born, this will be my 5th book."


Our Poison Horse touches on more autobiography than the romantic and fantastical that was so present in his past work. In Derrick Brown's words:


"I found a poetry in the real events that shaped or broke me. Every morning, I would quiet down, stare out into the field where we were watching our neighbors horse, a horse that was poisoned with pesticide by some local boys, a horse with massive scars all down its body from it's skin peeling from the poison sprayed upon it maliciously by some bastard kids. I watched the horse heal and finally come to me, and trust me and eat carrots. Something about that horse, Lacey, about it not trusting me and then warming up pulled something out of me that I didn't know I was ready for. There is a theme that in beautiful places, you will.