The brother swimming beneath me

the long version

The Brother Swimming Beneath Me is not just about loss, grief, a brother who succumbs to complications of leukemia at a young age. The poems within are also about addiction, sexual identity, enlightenment, jazz, Paris, and the Iraq War. A plate full of oysters, robots, and Moses also make cameo appearances. But swimming beneath all of these images and themes is the brother. Brent Goodman lives and writes in Wisconsin's north woods. The Brother Swimming Beneath Me is a book of deep introspection. It is not about living in the forest; instead, it is a book born of the physical and mental space that can be found there.