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Love Prodigal
Amidst cycles of heartbreak, trauma, and chronic pain, Love Prodigal finds strength in the natural world, motherhood, desire, and new love.
Fiercely self-aware and “utterly present tense,” Traci Brimhall’s Love Prodigal lives in the messiness of starting over. As Brimhall grieves a divorce and a new diagnosis, cycles of loss, heartbreak, family trauma, and chronic illness appear. There is an urge to detach, to go numb. Yet, pain is always returned as a gift—the beautiful vulnerability of feeling. In conversation with Da Vinci, Shakespeare, and Bachelard, images of the phoenix appear throughout the collection; its metaphor promises an easy and endless cycle of rebirth—a forever life, forever alone. Brimhall rejects this idea, instead reaching for the slow, messy, and imperfect process of healing. When the body becomes a site the poet “cannot live in or leave,” she finds strength in the beauty of the natural world, in motherhood, in desire, in new love, in “a thousand small pleasures that made [her] want to live.” Told through various forms—aubades, a prose crown of sonnets, an admissions essay—Love Prodigal says yes to second (and third and fourth) chances. The heart gets bigger every time it heals.
Fiercely self-aware and “utterly present tense,” Traci Brimhall’s Love Prodigal lives in the messiness of starting over. As Brimhall grieves a divorce and a new diagnosis, cycles of loss, heartbreak, family trauma, and chronic illness appear. There is an urge to detach, to go numb. Yet, pain is always returned as a gift—the beautiful vulnerability of feeling. In conversation with Da Vinci, Shakespeare, and Bachelard, images of the phoenix appear throughout the collection; its metaphor promises an easy and endless cycle of rebirth—a forever life, forever alone. Brimhall rejects this idea, instead reaching for the slow, messy, and imperfect process of healing. When the body becomes a site the poet “cannot live in or leave,” she finds strength in the beauty of the natural world, in motherhood, in desire, in new love, in “a thousand small pleasures that made [her] want to live.” Told through various forms—aubades, a prose crown of sonnets, an admissions essay—Love Prodigal says yes to second (and third and fourth) chances. The heart gets bigger every time it heals.
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Paperback
Published November 19, 2024
7 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
About the author
Traci Brimhall
20 books114 followersTraci Brimhall is the author of Our Lady of the Ruins (W.W. Norton, 2012), winner of the 2011 Barnard Women Poets Prize, and Rookery (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010), winner of the 2009 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
May 31, 2024
Obsessed with everything Traci Brimhall writes!! So excited to reread this when it gets published in November
February 5, 2026
Traci Brimhall instant 5 stars + favorite
February 15, 2025
Beautiful and brilliant. Brimhall's talent and imagination, ugh. Possibly one of her best, I'd argue.
March 22, 2025
In Traci Brimhall’s latest poetry collection, LOVE PRODIGAL (Copper Canyon Press, 2024), she tackles topics such as the end of a marriage, the loss of her mother, the pandemic, and learning to live with chronic pain and illness. This list might lead you to think the book’s primary connective tissue is sadness and regret, but on the contrary (and as the title suggests), the poems are woven into a cohesive collection by love: love that is exuberant and celebratory, even as it acknowledges the messy business of heartbreak and death and pain. There are also pieces in the book about a new relationship, and these are—yes—love poems.
As she writes about darker topics, Brimhall leans into the pain for what it can teach her about herself. The lesson over and over is that she is worthy, she is strong, she is capable of self-love. In “Cold, Crazy, Broken,” she explores her mistreatment in a previous relationship: “I’m sorry I held his breath between / my horns until he explained me to myself, said cold / said crazy said broken …” By the end of the poem, she has reframed these insults with her own powerful meanings: “I became the story / of me—cold as mint, crazy as holding my shadow’s hand / broken as the night when the new moon rises through it.”
In “Why I Stayed,” the title implies remaining in a relationship, but the relationship it references is the speaker’s relationship with life. She writes “all summer I wanted // to die … Instead, I took 99 / of the peacock’s eyes, half the checking account, and left.” The explanation for staying comes in these closing lines: “I found // a thousand small pleasures that made me want to live, and / they were bridges, birdsong, strawberries, sunlight, and lambs.”
LOVE PRODIGAL is infused with these “small pleasures” that make it a delight to read. One of Brimhall’s many strengths as a writer is her ability to startle and stun with fresh, inventive language. I underlined so many gorgeous phrases and lines like these:
“my heart // in its bone kennel” (“If You Want to Fall in Love Again”)
“love is a syllabus of domestic chores with rolling due dates and extra-credit candlelight” (“Arts & Sciences”)
“our bedroom window’s archive of light” (“Love Languages”)
I could list more examples, but they are best enjoyed within the context of the poems.
Brimhall’s work can be witty and playful with nods to pop culture (“I Would Do Anything for Love, but I Won’t” and “Long-Distance Relationship as Alt Text” ) as well as poems inspired by other poets, like “Someday I’ll Love Traci Brimhall” (after Ocean Vuong’s “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”).
“Someday I’ll Love Traci Brimhall” encapsulates many of the themes in the book as she writes of accepting herself, her pain, and her family, including her mother. Her linguistic chops are also on full display: “I’ll boast ornament & scandal”; “I’ll crisis & satisfy”; “[I’ll] Unbutton / myself, let the shames scuttle out”; “I’ll bumble like a bee…”.
The hardest person to love is often oneself, and though the conceit of this poem describes her love for Traci Brimhall as “nearly” here, in truth, the book is studded with a clear acceptance and celebration of the poet’s self. Perhaps that is the secret to the joy spilling out of these pages.
I have loved Traci Brimhall (and her words) for about six years now, since I first read her poetry. Of her earlier books, COME THE SLUMBERLESS TO THE LAND OF NOD was my favorite, and as I awaited the publication of LOVE PRODIGAL, I wondered if this new book could measure up. I am happy to report that it does. If you, too, would like to love Traci Brimhall, it’s as easy as reading her poetry.
As she writes about darker topics, Brimhall leans into the pain for what it can teach her about herself. The lesson over and over is that she is worthy, she is strong, she is capable of self-love. In “Cold, Crazy, Broken,” she explores her mistreatment in a previous relationship: “I’m sorry I held his breath between / my horns until he explained me to myself, said cold / said crazy said broken …” By the end of the poem, she has reframed these insults with her own powerful meanings: “I became the story / of me—cold as mint, crazy as holding my shadow’s hand / broken as the night when the new moon rises through it.”
In “Why I Stayed,” the title implies remaining in a relationship, but the relationship it references is the speaker’s relationship with life. She writes “all summer I wanted // to die … Instead, I took 99 / of the peacock’s eyes, half the checking account, and left.” The explanation for staying comes in these closing lines: “I found // a thousand small pleasures that made me want to live, and / they were bridges, birdsong, strawberries, sunlight, and lambs.”
LOVE PRODIGAL is infused with these “small pleasures” that make it a delight to read. One of Brimhall’s many strengths as a writer is her ability to startle and stun with fresh, inventive language. I underlined so many gorgeous phrases and lines like these:
“my heart // in its bone kennel” (“If You Want to Fall in Love Again”)
“love is a syllabus of domestic chores with rolling due dates and extra-credit candlelight” (“Arts & Sciences”)
“our bedroom window’s archive of light” (“Love Languages”)
I could list more examples, but they are best enjoyed within the context of the poems.
Brimhall’s work can be witty and playful with nods to pop culture (“I Would Do Anything for Love, but I Won’t” and “Long-Distance Relationship as Alt Text” ) as well as poems inspired by other poets, like “Someday I’ll Love Traci Brimhall” (after Ocean Vuong’s “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”).
“Someday I’ll Love Traci Brimhall” encapsulates many of the themes in the book as she writes of accepting herself, her pain, and her family, including her mother. Her linguistic chops are also on full display: “I’ll boast ornament & scandal”; “I’ll crisis & satisfy”; “[I’ll] Unbutton / myself, let the shames scuttle out”; “I’ll bumble like a bee…”.
The hardest person to love is often oneself, and though the conceit of this poem describes her love for Traci Brimhall as “nearly” here, in truth, the book is studded with a clear acceptance and celebration of the poet’s self. Perhaps that is the secret to the joy spilling out of these pages.
I have loved Traci Brimhall (and her words) for about six years now, since I first read her poetry. Of her earlier books, COME THE SLUMBERLESS TO THE LAND OF NOD was my favorite, and as I awaited the publication of LOVE PRODIGAL, I wondered if this new book could measure up. I am happy to report that it does. If you, too, would like to love Traci Brimhall, it’s as easy as reading her poetry.
Read
May 29, 2025Chose “Refugia” for poetry night — still the favorite in here. Some other words I liked:
“When I fear I am falling in love, I fever and bloom wildly, make a rubric of all my past lovers. I want measurable kisses and common interests, an objective score for their sexual skills and recycling habits, the way they season their soups.”
“I love mistakes but panic when I think people lie to themselves, so I hold up unwanted mirrors.”
“I think I could have hurt you back if I loved you enough, but I kept quiet, already bruised pink as a solstice, a spell of shrapnel and pollen. Bone roses weep their liberal praise as I photograph bouquets at your first funeral. The cheap resilience of hymns. A heaven emptied of fire alarms.”
“When I fear I am falling in love, I fever and bloom wildly, make a rubric of all my past lovers. I want measurable kisses and common interests, an objective score for their sexual skills and recycling habits, the way they season their soups.”
“I love mistakes but panic when I think people lie to themselves, so I hold up unwanted mirrors.”
“I think I could have hurt you back if I loved you enough, but I kept quiet, already bruised pink as a solstice, a spell of shrapnel and pollen. Bone roses weep their liberal praise as I photograph bouquets at your first funeral. The cheap resilience of hymns. A heaven emptied of fire alarms.”
December 7, 2025
"good God, I know you / won't take me back."
Traci Brimhall's Love Prodigal follows Brimhall's own divorce, her relationship to her mother, and what it means to let go to love. There were so many pockets of vulnerability in this collection that were striking and anchored many of Brimhall's floating images. However, I felt Brimhall shied away from her own vulnerability where the poetry became almost dare-like. The imagery that Brimhall created poured itself over the anchoring emotions too heavily and the poetry's sentiments were left feeling limp.
"a fishpond / heart like my father's"
When reading this, I can tell Brimhall was ready to speak her pain into language, but the poetry she created was not fully polished with her layered and complicated pain.
Traci Brimhall's Love Prodigal follows Brimhall's own divorce, her relationship to her mother, and what it means to let go to love. There were so many pockets of vulnerability in this collection that were striking and anchored many of Brimhall's floating images. However, I felt Brimhall shied away from her own vulnerability where the poetry became almost dare-like. The imagery that Brimhall created poured itself over the anchoring emotions too heavily and the poetry's sentiments were left feeling limp.
"a fishpond / heart like my father's"
When reading this, I can tell Brimhall was ready to speak her pain into language, but the poetry she created was not fully polished with her layered and complicated pain.
July 23, 2025
These poems simmer with desire while still echoing with a sense of loss and fear. They seem to take their first, vulnerable steps towards loving again (the self, another) while making real how grieving at best is transformed but never done. They seem to ask how to put yourself together again after breaking, how to integrate the fissures? The poetry brims with freely ranging imagery and stunning lines. I'm not sure if I enjoyed Love Prodigal as much as I did other collections of Brimhall's, but I do love its deep and deeply honest humanity.
September 16, 2025
I read this poem because of my ENG 525 class, but Traci's poetry is actually incredibly beautiful. These are love poems and, for me, they feel as though I am listening to Taylor Swift's Lover album. It is love in all the different forms, the good and the bad.
Intertwining mythology, nature, and manmade pieces has created a truly stunning poetry book that creates a conversation of the complexities that love is. It is not a simple thing to understand and Traci does an incredible job expressing that through prose.
Intertwining mythology, nature, and manmade pieces has created a truly stunning poetry book that creates a conversation of the complexities that love is. It is not a simple thing to understand and Traci does an incredible job expressing that through prose.
December 3, 2025
my favorite poem in the book, which I first read in the New Yorker, is the poem which made me want to read this collection. it’s called “LOVE POEM WITHOUT A DROP OF HYPERBOLE IN IT”.
These poems live in a slow, messy work of healing, full of foxes, tidepools, saints, and mothers who keep choosing to stay alive. she refuses easy phoenix-style rebirth in favor of small, ordinary pleasures that slowly reassemble a life, and I love — for the lack of a better word — that.
These poems live in a slow, messy work of healing, full of foxes, tidepools, saints, and mothers who keep choosing to stay alive. she refuses easy phoenix-style rebirth in favor of small, ordinary pleasures that slowly reassemble a life, and I love — for the lack of a better word — that.
January 10, 2026
Traci Brimhall's LOVE PRODIGAL (Copper Canyon Press) is absolutely stunning, poem after poem, the speaker immersing herself in the profound chaos that is healing and emerging from each messy scene with love, always, in her hands. These poems are fearless, intentional, self-reflective, forthright, and desirous, guided by an unrelenting empathy for the self and a deep interest in the world around her and all its possibilities. Really, really love this book.
March 12, 2025
Lovely collection with a beautiful style and a good sense of 'plot' for lack of a better term, where we really feel the growth and change in the speaker. I always love Brimhall's use of imagery and language, which was really inspiring here as well. Overall, just a really enjoyable and emotionally resonant volume of poetry
April 29, 2025
When I am a 3 so is the book I am reading. Read for Poetry With Pat. Some nice or thoughtful images especially
A Group of Moths
Love Is
The End of Girlhood
Arts & Sciences
Admissions Essay
What would I do if you returned as a cardinal?
Joy: A Reprise
A Group of Moths
Love Is
The End of Girlhood
Arts & Sciences
Admissions Essay
What would I do if you returned as a cardinal?
Joy: A Reprise
December 27, 2024
Traci Brimhall's poetry truly never misses, good fucking god.
April 24, 2025
Traci Brimhall never disappoints. Such a vision.
May 7, 2025
My God. What a talent. Sheer brilliance. Intoxicating.
June 17, 2025
Traci Brimhall always stuns me. This collection is no exception: bright and awake.
June 20, 2025
About half the poems just blow my socks off, and about half are meh to me. Half is amazing. And the meh is a matter of style, not of quality. So 4 stars it is!
June 23, 2025
To few collection explore embodiment in such a poetic manner so intimately as this one, instantiating the movement, the ebb, and flow of the physical.
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September 8, 2025wonderful exploration of love and the human capacity to do so.
October 12, 2025
Wow. Yep another poetry wow!
May 3, 2025
Overall, this is an evocative collection of poems with an intriguing title written by a poet with a distinctive voice and fresh imagery that sometimes startles, other times confounds, and always piques one’s pathos. As Bachelard once said (speaking of fire and of psychoanalyzing), “metaphors summon one another and are more coordinated than sensations, so much so that a poetic mind is purely and simply a syntax of metaphors,” which also aptly describes the mind that made these poems.
Favorite Poems:
“Love Prodigal”
“Quiescent”
“Refugia”
“A Group of Moths”
“Entomotherapy”
“Love Is”
“I can’t outgrow the darkness I protect.”
“Arts & Sciences”
“Admissions Essay”
“Aubade with a Confederacy of Daisies”
“Attachment Theory”
“Lacrimosa”
“Love Languages”
“Body, Remember”
Favorite Poems:
“Love Prodigal”
“Quiescent”
“Refugia”
“A Group of Moths”
“Entomotherapy”
“Love Is”
“I can’t outgrow the darkness I protect.”
“Arts & Sciences”
“Admissions Essay”
“Aubade with a Confederacy of Daisies”
“Attachment Theory”
“Lacrimosa”
“Love Languages”
“Body, Remember”
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews