The Distance Between Birds by Brooke McKinney

“These poems are intelligent, heartbroken, tender, beautiful, and altogether true reconciliations between the self and the world. Their music is a way of thinking, remembering, hoping,
dreaming, and praying. Their highest effect is to leave you eager to forgive trespasses, real or imaginary, and to love the world.”
–Li-Young Lee

“Many war poems are not about those who went to war. The Distance Between Birds is the story of a daughter at war trying to recover what’s been lost. “The love that war stole” makes her repeat “death, /over and over, until I understood this sad story.” It’s easy to forget the lessons about separating speaker and poet; it’s easy to believe what we desire: that these poems, if not most poems, are auto biographical. You want the poet you have bonded with to find happiness or at least come to terms with the great losses that seem to spawn her verses. Sometimes in poetry, as in life, you don’t get what you desire. Sometimes, a terrible beauty is all that’s given, and it has to be enough.”
–Rick Campbell

“There is an abiding sense of loss in these poems, particularly for a father tragically damaged by war, but through the power of memory and vivid language The Distance between Birds honors what is lost and will not let what is lost be forgotten. Brooke McKinney is a very fine poet and she deserves a wide and appreciative audience.”
–Ron Rash