Courtney, Brandon: This, Sisyphus

This, Sisyphus by Brandon Courtney (YesYes Books, paperback) Publication Date: May 14, 2019 Publisher Marketing: Poetry. LGBTQIA Studies. Metaphysical in scope, transcendent in language, THIS, SISYPHUS makes malleable received forms and rhyme to articulate what it means to face incalculable loss. Centered on the death and subsequent repatriation of a sailor who was the author's lover and closest friend, this collection moves beyond elegiac gestalt, questioning instead a God who created an imperfect world in which death is possible and inevitable. Composed of four sections, THIS, SISYPHUS is a rejection of Leibniz's "best possible world," and, more importantly, it is the author's transubstantiated epiphany that, ultimately, in tragedy and suffering, we have only each other."Whether wrestling God or trying to make sense and sound out of grief, Brandon Courtney's THIS, SISYPHUS is a bright, urgent addition to the elegiac canon. My lord, folks, the language Courtney has found here interrup