Brazos

A stark and lonely voice rings clear in Justin Carter's debut collection. Brazos teems with ghosts, bloodlines, and gas flares, tracing a "river cloaked in mud" that trudges toward the Texas Gulf Coast. In these poems, a complex Millennial coming-of-age story emerges amidst the grief for a place that seems to disappear while standing still— always haunted by the ways "we've all been pulled under" the currents of violence, identity, and change.