Reviews
Review by: Robert Pinsky, former poet laureate of the United States - June 11, 2026
"Clifford Brooks writes passionate, eloquent poetry, as wide-ranging as the models he sometimes invokes, including the blues and the epics."
Review by: Major Jackson, award-winning poet and the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities, Vanderbilt University - June 11, 2026
"A wild, unruly love anchors the poems in Clifford Brooks's ORPHEUS REMAINS, the kind that makes the blues an essential art of ventilation and renewal, his lines widening out to all the strong-hearted, all the soothsayers, staggering 'bloodshot on moon-hung highways' mouthing his words, charmed back to life."
Review by: Wang Ping, poet, writer, photographer, and performance and multimedia artist - June 11, 2026
"Old Gods, oh, Old Gods, how many poets and singers have been wailing to you, and how much have you actually heard? But you've got to open your heart to hear this poet's prayer. We should all open our hearts to hear Clifford Brooks's singing to Old God. It's heartbreakingly beautiful, brutally honest, and brilliantly poetic. It wrenches your heart away, then returns it with tenfold strength. ORPHEUS REMAINS is another hail/plea/howl/prayer to Old Gods, only louder, more heart wrenching, more ground shaking, more beautiful, and much more needed in this era."