Light in All Directions

Poetry. Winner of the 2010 San Diego Book & Writing Award for Poetry. LIGHT IN ALL DIRECTIONS is a remarkable piece of writing written as is with an amazing closeness to death. Sometimes, as in "Tongues of Dust," it is from right inside death. "At the wake, they won't stop saying my name. / That's the point, I guess, to keep me from drifting too far." Sometimes it is the death caused by fire or bitterness or loss. But as you read, it does not harm you, instead you are fearful for him, for how far he has entered places we should not go. Brandon's writing is so sure and so honest you are willing to go where he takes you knowing he will leave you with something of value, difficult though it is.

Brandon Cesmat teaches literature & writing at several colleges in Southern California. His first book, Driven into the Shade, received a San Diego Book Award. His short story collection When Pigs Fall in Love & Other Stories is from Caernarvon Press. He is an active teaching artist in California Poets in the Schools (CPITS) and an active member in Teaching Artists Organize (TAO). Cesmat harvests brush every summer with his wife and their three sons at their home just above Paradise Creek in Valley Center, California.