The Book of James by Eric Wayne Dickey

In Eric Wayne Dickey‘s book-length elegy for his brother, we attend the wake in which each other attendee is some version of Eric. Each poem is one of those variations, leaning over the reader’s shoulder and whispering a story about James. Each story will bring you joy, to tears, a smile, or grief. It’ll make you experience your first loss all over again.

–Jerry Brunoe

In this book of wise, compassionate and mystical poems, Eric Wayne Dickey balances joy and grief as he examines his long-lost brother James through personas as varied as Etta James and James Dean. James comes alive through the blending of multiple narratives, as in “James Franco:” “You played award-winning roles,” and “Jimmy Carter:” “As of this writing, you are still hammering and sawing.” Oracle, phantom, and muse, James’s essence lives on, weaving its way through poem after poem in often startling new manifestations. Innovative and bold, The Book of James is a moving tribute to a brother whose life ended too soon.

–Erica Goss, Los Gatos Poet Laureate Emerita, Author of Wild Place (Finishing Line Press, 2012), Night Court (Glass Lyre Press, 2017), and Landscape with Womb and Paradox (Broadstone Books, 2025)

I love this book. I love its idea: exploring what his brother means to the speaker by exploring the lives of many others, famous and not famous, who have the same first name. I love how within each of these portraits the lines shift from the literal to the magical, jumping from one idea to the next, surprising us, and yet how seamlessly Dickey blends portraiture with autobiography, how expertly he breaks his lines. The imagery is often very striking. There’s a deliberate roughness to the rhythm that rings true. This is an often funny book but more often a tender book and a poignant book, and all the more tender because that tenderness sneaks up on us. The Book of James is a sustained elegy for a lost brother, and because of what happens in these wonderful poems, this man, this James, becomes our brother, too.

–Chris Anderson, emeritus professor of English at Oregon State University, Catholic deacon, and author of Love Calls Us Here (Wildhouse Publishing, 2024).

Eric Wayne Dickey’s The Book of James is an elegiac masterpiece. Throughout the collection, the ghost of Dickey’s older brother embodies scores of Jameses – Jesse James, Etta James, Captain James Tiberius Kirk, the James River, and Jamestown. Yet behind the grief, there is the joy of a boyhood spent building treehouses, playing pretend, exploring in nature. To break up the heaviness of heartache, Dickey intersperses prose poems about the Hardy Boys, which are a celebration of nostalgia and brotherhood. This collection is a must-read! It is a tapestry beautifully woven from grief and love.
 –Shaindel Beers, author of Secure Your Own Mask, finalist for the Oregon Book Award

This is a distinguished collection of poems. Jamesian in its range, depth, and intensity. Eric Dickey’s considerable obsessiveness is now the reader’s joy, with a volume that goes straight for the funny bone and the heart.

–David Biespiel