The History of Projectiles

by Tony Brewer, Alien Buddha (Contributor)

Tony Brewer’s latest chapbook is a poetic archive of projectiles—all those things that emerge from orifices in trajectories—imagined bullets from firearm muzzles (“Dad’s old 12 gauge,” “a Crossman 760 BB rifle”); terse speculations from the mouths of the confessional speaker (“Cause of gunshot – multiple,” “The papers ignite but no memory is lost”); multiple projections coaxed from the reader of these clean, spare lines—backward into Brewer’s deeply haunting personal past, and forward into a future when gun control debates will be resurrected with each mass shooting. Quiet fire runs through these poems as they exhibit a stoic mastery of control, like precisely aimed bullets through gunmetal silver. ---—Hiromi Yoshida, author of Icarus Burning

42 pages, Paperback

Published May 30, 2021

About the author

TONY BREWER is a poet, audio artist, and event producer. He has published 13 books and chapbooks including: HOT TYPE COLD READ, HOMUNCULUS, PITY FOR SALE, FRAGILE BATTERIES, GOOD JOB, LIGHTNING, and WATER WITCH. He has been nominated numerous times for a Pushcart Prize and has been finalist for Indiana State Poet Laureate. He has won awards from the HEAR Now Festival and the Indiana Society of Professional Journalists. He won an Angela Lansbury Award and was made a Kentucky Colonel for his foley work at the International Mystery Writers Festival and received the Bradshaw Award from the American Society for Science Fiction Audio. He has produced and recorded for community and public radio, and he has offered Poetry On Demand at coffeehouses, museums, cemeteries, churches, bars, and art and music festivals for over fifteen years. Tony also frequently collaborates with experimental audio collective Urban Deer Record Co. Tony was named Indiana's 2024 Literary Champion by the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Author Awards.

Reviews

[Tim Heerdink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reminiscent of his 2010 release, Little Glove in a Big Hand, Tony Brewer returns to not only the condensed form of the chapbook but the more personal side of poetry. The History of Projectiles breaks down into six sections of otherwise unnamed poems centered on the theme of guns.

At a young age, Brewer witnessed how guns affect different people from hunting and killing small animals to teaching oneself after dodging the recoil of a shotgun how to reload. Smoking along with his father’s illness also stand out as recurring topics as he, too, grows older with the passing of time.

Just as the death of his cousin from a farming accident when they were both four chronicled in his previous chapbook, the handgun passed down from his mother first used in training for self defense still follows him along with the memories tying familiar stories to the greater picture as domestic violence and school shootings beg the question of gun control be ever present in conversation.

This quick read deserves multiple visitations as do all of Tony Brewer’s offerings. The History of Projectiles developed from its pupil state a relatable recollection of how many grew up and the repercussions of a culture that glorified objects over mental health and the safety of those to come.

- Tim Heerdink, author of Somniloquy & Trauma in the Knottseau Well