The Constitution

“Brian Foley is the poet laureate of No Man’s Land and The Constitution is his bloodletting. Each poem casts a spare spell, spilling difficult medicine when it breaks “scrib- / bled” down the middle. He’s always breaking things, breaking them open, finding clarity in middle’s muddle, revealing how each word is necessary to “see it nerve.” He writes: “leave your / belongings / in your mouth / mine” and with each deep, stark cut the empty mouth becomes a house, built and filled. It is constituted. And hard work has its rewards. After all, “the middle // of nowhere / has plenty / of lovers.” —Chris Martin, author of Becoming Weather and American Music

“A book of limits, a book of pain, the taut lines & precise ear in Brian Foley’s The Constitution speak clearly but open expansively. The poems are as accessible as a face & as deep as a chord. It is a relief to read The Constitution, to know that however much desire & pain & love & joy & the unspeakable may damage that Foley understands & can mend me.” —Mathias Svalina, co-publisher of Octopus Books

“Thank you stars, thank you poetry, Brian Foley has written us a truly empathetic, wonderful, complicated good book--welcome to The Constitution, where we are invited to navigate the poet’s interior country--by turns devastated, aching, yet gathering light. I will still “dare to be good” with this book’s help, courting disaster, open to amending the laws of a heart’s complicated truth. The Constitution is my blueprint for a kinder, more feeling world. These poems guide me through the wilderness inside.” —Wendy Xu, author of You Are Not Dead