Praise for Solving the World's Problems

Rather than solving the world’s problems, this collection turns them to the sun like a prism—casting bright and spare images of humanity in flux. "We spill ourselves all over ourselves," one poem observes, "our excess light / our forgiving natures." A girl buries a blue jay beneath playground wood chips; God adjusts the brim on his cap as he watches the ice melt. Brewer’s sound-play has the power to take us to unexpected places. In regards to ‘the last bomb on earth,’ we are advised "if you see the button / push the button // her button / is a dark puddle in a cave / proper handshake." Compassionate, challenging, and filled with slinky swerves of phrase, these poems refresh how we look at our daily lives.

—Sandra Beasley, author of I Was the Jukebox

The "World" in Robert Lee Brewer’s Solving the World’s Problems is a slippery world ... where chaos always hovers near, where we are (and should be) "splashing around in dark puddles." And one feels a bit dizzy reading these poems because (while always clear, always full of meaning) they come at reality slantwise so that nothing is quite the same and the reader comes away with a new way of looking at the ordinary objects and events of life. The poems are brim-full of surprises and delights, twists in the language, double-meanings of words, leaps of thought and imagination, interesting line-breaks. There are love and relationship poems, dream poems, poems of life in the modern world. And always the sense (as he writes) of "pulling the world closer to me/leaves falling to the ground/ birds flying south." I read these once, twice with great enjoyment. I will go back to them often.

—Patricia Fargnoli, former Poet Laureate of New Hampshire and author of Then, Something

hese poems illustrate the vitality of poetry in our daily lives. Diverse, refreshing, even at times startling, these poems make bold claims for poetry. Robert Lee Brewer confesses that like all poets he wants “to say something important …. to write the poem / that inspires other people / to build chairs and / drive trucks and write poems.” Brewer knows how important the reflexive act of writing poetry can be, should be, and often is in our daily attempts to solve the world’s problems. 

—Scott Owens, author of Something Knows the Moment

About the Author

ROBERT LEE BREWER was born and lived his first 30 years in Southwestern Ohio before moving to the sprawl of Atlanta, Georgia. As Senior Content Editor of the Writer's Digest Writing Community, he gets paid to edit books (including Poet's Market), manage websites and blogs (including Poetic Asides), write magazine articles, participate in online education, and speak nationally on topics related to writing and publishing. As a poet, Robert was named Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere in 2010, has been a featured reader at several poetry events around the country, and has found homes for dozens of his poems in online and print publications. He also self-published two limited edition (and sold out) chapbooks of poetry, Enter and Escape. As a freelancer, he curates an image-based poetry series for Virginia Quarterly Review. As a human being, Robert is married to the poet Tammy Foster Brewer, who helps him keep track of their five little poets (four boys and one princess). Learn more at www.robertleebrewer.com.