What Flesh Inherits, Volume 14 Poems

What Flesh Inherits is a meditation on home, identity, belief, and the ways in which small-town Texas culture has shaped Brownlee’s own origin story, as well as the experiences and stories of the friends and family members in the town where he grew up (Llano, TX, population 3,033). Readers are introduced to not only Brownlee’s Hill Country roots and memories, but also a quasi-gospel exploring the life, death, and resurrection of Aron Anderson, a fictional character introduced midway through the book who is assembled from the people and landscape that defined the poet’s childhood. Brownlee and Anderson’s voices join a chorus of unexpected speakers in this collection that include grasshoppers, deer, coyotes, catfish, and other Hill Country creatures and spirits, teaching us what it means to belong even when we feel, at times, like exiles in familiar places.

The Sabine Series in Literature, No. 14

J. Scott Brownlee is a poet from Llano, Texas. His first full-length collection, Requiem for Used Ignition Cap, was selected by C. Dale Young as the winner of the 2015 Orison Poetry Prize, named a finalist for the National Poetry Series, and received the 2016 Best First Book of Poetry Award from the Texas Institute of Letters.