Ely Shipley, Quarterly West

"Brown's awareness of the book's form, its how in addition to its what, allows for these poems' rich complexities. The order not only forms a linear narrative, but layers experience. . . . Such raw and beautiful imagery is just one of the many threads that pull this book together. The moments result in nothing short of song. Each poem develops a scene the way a photograph reveals its occasion as it develops, ghostly at first beneath the chemical liquid in the dark room, sharpening into gradual, undeniable, and vivid evidence. Such evidence must answer the speaker's final question in the poem "Tintinnabulation," "sister, did you feel loved, ever, / by me?' In Nickole Brown's care this journey is an honest one; the sensation is only and always compassionate and sincere."