PositiveThe CollagistBrown aptly addresses subject matter at once universal, cultural, and personal. The fear permeating this impactful collection is a broadly human fear, but it also pertains specifically to the vulnerability of the black body, the black male body, and the black male queer body in contemporary America, thrusting us into our present moment while reminding us how we got here ... asks his audience to question their own complicity in the violence that permeates these poems ... \'The Long Way\' is one of many poems in the collection that stick with you long after reading, its powerful voice amplified by the haunting repetition and stark syntax of its concluding couplet ... Stylistically, one very innovative element of The Tradition is Brown\'s invention of a new poetic form, the duplex.
